“Yep,” I said. “Perfect.”
“I’m not going to ask anything about her dad, but I did see that you added a sticker to your helmet,” he said with a smirk.
“I think it looks nice. I needed to represent Pucks on my mask.” There hadn’t been time to remove her father’s number from one side of my mask, so I’d gotten a sticker made of Pucks to cover it. Would she notice? She was constantly teasing me about my golden retriever qualities.
Micah chuckled.
“What are we waiting for? Get your asses on the ice,” Sin called out as he headed down the tunnel. The music was already pumping through the arena as we hit the ice.
I did a lap around our half of the rink and immediately spotted Dani at the glass behind my net. I waved my blocker pad at her, a huge grin on my face. I didn’t care that this was supposed to be for show, I had an extra pep in my step since she was here. I did a turn movement with my blocker hand when I got to the glass, and she rolled her eyes at me, but she was smiling. It was a sardonic smile, but I’d take what I could get.
I knew she was wearing my jersey because I highly doubted she would go out and buy a different one, but I still loved her showing me that “Tucker” spread across her shoulders.
“Happy?” she said over her shoulder.
“Damn right. I told you my name would look good on you.”
She spun back around and—were her cheeks pink?
“Go stretch or something,” I heard her say.
I saluted her with my glove to my mask, then said hello to my posts and moved to the side so I could drop down and stretch out. The guys were already firing pucks on the net whileI worked on my visualization techniques. Every game I did the same routine, shifting my head from side to side and picturing the angles pucks would come at me as I lifted my blocker to stop each imaginary shot. It was like a well-choreographed dance. I stretched out my legs, going into a full split, and tested my hips before doing a shimmy and popping back up. I looked over to where Dani sat and grinned as she stared at me. Of course she couldn’t see my expression under my mask but catching her watching me gave me an extra bit of energy.
I skated past her and blew her a kiss to tease her. She laughed and shook her head at me. I wanted her at every game from here on out.
“You going to flirt all night or block some shots?” Dom asked, skating up next to me.
“Oh, please. Like you don’t do the same thing when Ally’s down here?”
“Of course I do, but she’s my actual girlfriend,” he said, dropping his voice low so he wasn’t blasting that Dani and I weren’t really dating. “It’s not really fake anymore, is it?”
“Yes, it is,” I instantly replied.
He chuckled. “But you’re falling for her. Hell, you already fell for her, didn’t you?”
“Maybe. I mean, she is amazing.”
“I knew it. She feel the same?”
I blew out a breath. “I have no fucking idea. Probably not.” Yeah, she was attracted to me and didn’t mind me kissing her, but pressuring her for anything beyond our agreement would be a dick move. She didn’t want a real relationship with any guy right now, and I understood that.
“After all of this is done, don’t let her walk away if you think there could be something more. Fuck, Ally and I wasted a lot of years while I had my head up my ass.”
“Dom, get out of the fucking net already,” Santa called out, and we both turned to see a handful of our teammates waiting to fire shots on me.
“Yeah, yeah. So impatient, Santa. You need some milk and cookies to stop that grinchiness of yours,” Dom taunted, skating away from me.
“Oh fuck off,” Santa grumbled as I got into position to deflect their shots.
***
A short while later, we all headed back to the locker room for a final pep talk before the game started. This was our home opener, and before a few nights ago, I’d been thrilled thattheMalcolm Albans was going to be in attendance and commentating for the national broadcast. It was true that you should never meet your idols. Now I just wanted to spank Montreal’s ass because he was here somewhere in the building. A shutout would be awesome every day, but it would feel extra sweet to get it against the team Dani’s father used to play for. Of course, it didn’t really mean anything to the man since he wasn’t actually playing, but I’d rather he not watch his team be victorious tonight. Dani had given me some details about their relationship, so no points for Montreal if I had anything to say about it.
“Before we get to the line announcements, we have a visitor that wanted to say hello,” Millsy said from the center of the room.
Was Violet or one of my other teammate’s kids coming in to read out the lines? It was adorable every time.
But then Albans walked into the room.
