Page 35 of Play Your Part

She grinned at me. “Kens, he’s hot. If I were you, I would’ve dragged him out of the house and—”

I plugged my ears and sangla-la-la-la. When her lips stopped moving, I removed my hands from my ears. “Again, I have to ask. Is Matt okay with the unhinged affection you have for Alexei?”

Gemma smirked. “Please. I’ve told him my hotness ranking of all his teammates.”

“Oh my God.”

“What? He needs to know I have options. It helps him stay on his game.”

“As if he needs a reminder. He’s obsessed with you.”

Gemma shrugged, pinning me with an expression that said it all.It can’t be helped.“Did Alexei tell you about the newest Wolf?”

“Alexei and I are not actually dating, Gem. So no.” Although Alexei and I did have a coffee date this morning, and he hadn’t mentioned anything to me.

Gemma slipped her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, unlocked it, then held it out to me. “Emil Clark got hurt, so they had to call up—”

“I know who Zach Briggs is,” I said, looking at the baby-faced kid on Gemma’s phone. Light freckles across his cheeks, brownish-blonde hair, not a trace of facial hair.

The Wolves picked Zach Briggs first in the draft last year. I sat with my mom at the arena, watching it on the jumbotron with season ticket members. The crowd cheered when the announcement was made—this fan base thought he would save the team. When he walked onto the stage with an enormous grin on his face, I couldn’t help but think how it was an awful lot of pressure to put on a gangly, eighteen-year-old kid who’d sat in a high school math class a week before being handed a million-dollar contract.

But then I saw him play. He skated with such ease, faster than many players, and he had this uncanny ability to find weak spots on the ice at the right time. Even though other players had the height advantage, he charged his way fearlessly toward the goal, positioning himself to chip in pucks, bumping elbows with guys who weighed fifty pounds more than him. Often, he won those battles.

Zach Briggs was the real deal. The fan base didn’t love that he hadn’t made the roster right away, but management hadn’t wanted to rush his development. He was their future.

“Right,” she said with a nod. “Of course you do. Well, because Emil’s injury turned out to be worse than they thought, Zach is staying with the team. Living with none other than your man.”

I laughed, loud and obnoxious. “What wonderful human can I thank for this development?”

“Alexei volunteered to take Zach in,” Gemma said, tilting her head from side to side. “Zach could be sent back to the AHL at any time, and Alexei offered his house so Zach wouldn’t have to live at a hotel when they were in Palmer City.”

“I will need to see this to believe it,” I told Gemma.

Alexei volunteering to help the future star of this franchise shocked me. From everything I knew, Zach receiving any bit of the spotlight would land him on Alexei’s shit list rather than as his roommate. Although hitching his ride to a future star of the team could endear him to the fan base and show all those other teams—the ones he would prefer to play for—he could be a good teammate. Alexei was nothing if not strategic.

“Better catch them before Sunday when they take off for a week.”

“Sunday. Right.” I sent myself a reminder by email.

Gemma laughed and shoved against my shoulder. “You’re a terrible girlfriend.” When my face fell, she added, “Come on, it was a joke, Kens.”

Except now, I realized, Alexei housed a teammate who might notice just how terrible I was. I groaned internally at the thought of stepping up my game to convince him our relationship was real.

15

ALEXEI

ZacharyBriggsclompeddownthe steps, sneakers untied as he dragged his suitcase behind him. It had been three days since I came home to find him sprawled on my couch, clutching a game controller and shouting obscenities. I considered dragging him out by his ear, but I didn’t think anyone would approve of that. Deandra textedYou keep making my job easierafter finding out I asked Zach to move in. I hadn’t made the offer to gain brownie points with the organization, team, or fans. The lad looked sad waiting alone for an Uber to drive him back to the hotel, and I had an extra room in my house. After finding out that the fans wanted to hear about our living situation, I had to find a way to make it work.

So instead of tossing Zach out on his ass that day, I walked upstairs without saying a word.

Ignoring the problem lasted less than a day.

Zach took up residence in front of the TV, playing video games every moment he wasn’t at the rink or sleeping. One night, his yelling forced me awake. Downstairs in his usual spot, his eyes remained glued to the screen in a dazed kind of way. The room around him was in total chaos—a half-eaten pizza in an open box, two empty beer bottles on their sides beside an open bag of chips, crumbs in front, as if he’d pulled chips from the bag without looking. A singular sock was beneath his naked feet.

I wasn’t proud about what I screamed at him, but it, along with new guidelines I established the following day, improved the situation to a livable level. Zach didn’t need to know my threat to kick him out wasn’t real.

“You have everything?” I asked, leaning against the counter. My bags had been packed since last night for our three-game, week-long trip—the first of the season.

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