I was wearing Gabe’s jersey and a scarf with his number on it. “Did I go overboard? I considered a hat but thought it would be too much.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t write Tucks’s number on your forehead. Maybe that’ll get Jenzy to fuck off,” Josie muttered. “I still can’t believe he’s commenting on every post of you and Tucks. How does he not see how pitiful that is?”
“He can only see his ego,” I replied.
“And it’s fucking massive. Is the next step holding up a sign asking Tucks to marry you?” Harper asked from the other side of me.
“Holy shit, that would be perfect,” Josie chimed in, a huge grin on her face.
“That’s taking it way too far.”
Josie quirked her brow. “But is it really?”
I sighed. “Who fucking knows at this point? Roger just needs to find another woman to date. Not that I’d wish his bullshit on anyone else.”
“Enough about him. We’re going to focus on cheering on our boys and Jenzy can just fuck off. Flirt like hell with Tucks and maybe that idiot will be so focused on you that he’ll miss every puck fired on him. I hate that we haven’t beaten the Blizzard so far this season.”
“Yes. Let’s change that tonight. Oh, I think warm-ups are about to start.” Harper nodded to the security guard at the head of the ramp that led to our section of the glass.
The music picked up and the teams streamed out onto the ice, the Blizzard at the far end from us and the Stampede in front of our section.
“Perfect timing, ladies.” Cora turned to grin at us before taking her attention back to the ice, where Tally skated over to her and blew her a kiss. “That captain sure is dreamy,” she gushed.
“Aren’t they all?” Josie cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hey, Micahtron. Looking hot out there.”
Her boyfriend shook his head at her, but he was probably also grinning. I’d witnessed their antics more than once at this point, and their dynamic was entertaining to say the least.
I couldn’t help but glance down the full length of the ice to spot number thirty-two on the back of a Blizzard jersey. He was skating around his net, looking tense. Good. I hoped he had a terrible game.
I knew Gabe could handle whatever Roger threw at him, but I still felt guilty for putting such a nice guy in this mess. Speaking of, I moved closer to the glass just in time to watch him skate toward me. He removed his helmet and raked his hand through his hair, an ear-splitting smile on his face.
Dammit, he was so freaking hot. He shouldn’t be allowed to flash that dimple at me. I was totally not in love with this man after less than four weeks. That would be absurd.
Lust. Absolutely.
Love. Nope. Uh, yeah, absolutely not.
Or at least that’s what I was going to keep telling myself. Falling for him would just make all of this worse.
When I stepped up to the glass, he waved at me and I waved back.
“You two are so cute,” Cora said. “I always thought of Nate as a golden retriever, but Tucks takes it to an entirely different level.”
I laughed. “You’re not wrong on that.”
“How’s everything going?” she asked when both of our men skated away to warm up.
Our men.
He wasn’t mine. Not really. I needed to get my head on straight.
“Great. Working with Meredith has been wonderful. She’s very organized. And the guys are showing up in a few days to play some street hockey with the kids and for a Halloween costume contest. Gabe stopped by with Pucks yesterday to hang out and the kids loved it.”
“I’m glad you got something set up so quickly. Meredith is awesome. And the boys love dressing up for kids. They do quite a few hospital visits a year and somehow always manage to either be in costume or wearing festive headbands or something. Anything to get those kids smiling.”
“That’s so sweet.” I loved seeing these big, strong men have softer sides. Over the years, I’d come to realize that charity work was a big part of these professional sports teams, and I had more than one memory of my dad bitching about doing them when I was a kid.
“Thinking of those sick kids makes me sad, too,” Cora said.
