Page 54 of My Lucky Charm

I hate having anyone’s attention on me for whatever reason—but I don’t mind hers.

It even makes me want to be nicer to the people around me, including my teammates.

She’s made a point to tell me what great guys my teammates are. In fact, she seems to know more about each player than a real hockey fan, and she’s quick to point these details out.

Oddly, it’s helped on the ice.

I now know that Kemp doesn’t pass to his left side as often as his right. Krush is slower skating backward than forward. Meyer is sneaky good, and basically unhittable when someone is crashing the boards and launching to check him.

But what I’ve learned about Burke, I’ve learned all on my own. Ever since my outburst during the press conference, he and I meet early on the ice before practice. And his dedication matches my own.

He’s got my respect.

It’s Saturday, and I’m at the rink by 6:45 a.m. It’s supposed to be an off day, but we’ve got a game tomorrow, so it’s a modified practice.

A lot of the guys won’t come in until later, but Dallas is already there when I get there. It sends a message.

Something twists inside of me. I owe it to him to return the favor.

“Morning,” he says. “Ready for this?”

I nod, put my helmet on, and we don’t say another word. We start with conditioning, then do some skill training. Then something called the Swedish overspeed drill—which is supposed to push our skating speed past what feels comfortable. We spend an hour on the ice, just the two of us, and when we finish, we head toward the locker room.

“Ready to hit the gym?” I ask.

“You have to ask?” He smirks. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

In Philly, I was an anomaly. The only one who chose sleep over bars, practice over partying. Celibacy over women.

I get the impression Burke and I have more in common than hockey.

We walk into the locker room, still the only ones here. “Listen, Burke. I’m—”

He turns and faces me, and it’s like he already knows what I’m going to say. “It’s cool, man.”

“No, it’s not,” I say. “I have a lot on my mind, but I know I’ve been . . .”

He raises a brow, waiting for me to finish.

“Difficult,” I say through clenched teeth.

We pull off our practice gear, and Burke sits down on the bench in front of the lockers. “It’s not easy to come to a new team. Most of us have been playing together for a long time, and you had a life back in Philly. I get it.”

I think about that life. Walking away from it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Nobody here knows just how hard.

But maybe dwelling on it isn’t the answer. Maybe trying to make the best of it is.

Whoa. That thought couldn’t have been my own. I’m not a “make the best of it” kind of guy. Eloise and her toxic positivity must be rubbing off on me.

“So, uh, your girlfriend’s dad—” I say as we head toward the weight room. “Was he born deaf?”

Burke frowns over at me. “Weird question.”

It is a weird question. There are a thousand things I want to know about Eloise, and this is what I ask? “Yeah, sorry if it’s personal.”

“No, it’s not.” He pushes open the door to the weight room and I follow him inside. “And yeah. Since he was a kid, I think. He’s a great guy. Huge hockey fan—and a huge Grayson Hawke fan, too. He was pretty stoked to hear we got you.”

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