Page 65 of Love Puck

And everything in me knew—I no longer had the right to ask that. Or to take care of her.

Jillian was engaged to another man. She wasn’t mine.

Even though I sometimes caught her looking over at me with sad eyes.

And those sad eyes called to me.

Asking me to knock on her door late at night.

Or to meet her after-hours at the rink.

Or the country bar.

Neither of which I’d done for two weeks now.

And yes, I knew exactly how many days I’d been Jillian-free. Detoxing from that woman wasn’t easy.

Not texting her—or showing up at her door—was so fucking hard. Especially when she was so goddamn close.

A twenty-second walk across the courtyard.

Or one text away.

In other words—I was in hell.

The only bright side of all this—our team had finally gotten its collective shit together. We’d been completely dominating on the ice.

And fuck—it felt great.

The fans loved us again.

The owners even invited the three of us back over to their mansion. This time—it was all good news and congratulations.

Beau and Trey toasted me—saying it was all because of our “stupid team bonding ideas.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true or not. Even so, I wanted to call up Jillian and thank her for giving that advice.

Which I absolutely could not do.

Nope.

Just hearing her voice on the phone might send me into another downward spiral. And I wasn’t willing to throw away the last two weeks of detoxing I’d done.

Wyatt laid down at my feet with a thump, and I patted his back. “Good boy. I’ll take you for a walk in a few minutes.”

Trey walked up and sat with us. “I can’t wait to get on the road,” he said while opening a large bottle of water.

Beau nodded and agreed. “Me, too. We’ve got some asses to kick.”

He was more than right.

After the less than stellar start to the season, we definitely had some redeeming to do. I wanted to get back out there and keep showing everyone what we could really do.

Trey looked over at his wife, who was rushing across the courtyard. “What’s the hurry?” he asked with a frown.

Lexi called out, “Jillian needs help.”

Trey nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off her until she was at Jillian’s door. “She’s been helping Jillian a lot lately.”

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