“We’d been pretty close, too! He may have said it didn’t have anything to do with me, but it was hard not to get your feelings hurt when he didn’t seem to want to see you.”
“I bet. I am so sorry you had to go through that.” Katie reached over and placed her hand on his forearm, and it sent a tingling warmth radiating out from it. He just gazed at her hand for a few moments until she asked, “Is that why your family moved? I don’t remember seeing you again after that dance.”
He flinched. He did every time he even thought of the dance because it had been the culmination of everything bad. “It was. My mom knew something big needed to change for me. She literally let me throw a dart blindfolded at an NHL teams map and we moved to the one closest to where the dart landed. We started completely over there— everything we’d known was in Colorado.”
“Wow,” Katie said. “I can’t imagine the bravery that required of your mom. Of all of you.”
“And I love her forever for it.”
“It was a good move? You didn’t miss home?”
“It was exactly what I needed— I thrived there. It’s coming back here that is hard.” It wasn’t a place he wanted to be. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he was going to request a trade.
“Well, I guess we need to change your memories here into good ones.”
He smiled.
“You have an away game tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Minnesota.”
“All right, on Friday, your third event to fulfill your contract is a hay ride. We’ll make sure it’s full of good memories.”
nine
CONNOR
Connor steppedoff the ice and headed down the hallway toward the visitor locker rooms after the game against the North Star in Minneapolis. It had been a hard-played game that left him frustrated and exhausted. They’d managed to squeak out a win in the end, but it wasn’t pretty.
Normally, nothing except the game was on his mind for hours afterward. But he was barely off the ice and Katie popped into his mind. Yes, she’d been spending a lot of time in his head lately, but her coming into his mind right now was unprecedented for him. Maybe it was because he wanted to talk with her about the game. He loved every chance he got to talk to her— their conversations were easy and natural and made him feel like he could be himself.
Last night had been fun. Outreach was a big part of the NHL, and he didn’t usually mind doing it at all. But it was tough having to do it while trying to gel with a new team, during Christmastime, and with such a tight window to fit everything in. But unlike the previous activity that had gone so disastrously, he’d really enjoyed every bit of last night.
And even more than the gingerbread judging, he enjoyed talking with Katie after. He always felt a strong connection with her whenever they talked, but last night, it had gotten stronger. After he spilled so much about his dad, they’d talked about random things, laughed, shared goals, and just chatted until the people closing up the building kicked them out. Then they got ice cream at an all-night convenience store and talked more.
And now, he really wanted to talk with her about the game. To work through what was going on. He had played hard— they all had, but things just weren’t coming together with this team.
Although it wasn’t super common, fights happened in the NHL. It was an intense game played by driven players, and sometimes emotions and frustrations spilled over. Sometimes it was during a game with a player on the opposing team. Sometimes during practice with a teammate. When you spent so many hours a day with the same guys over so many months, traveling together and rooming together, you could get on each other’s nerves.
But fights with a teammate during a game rarely occurred. And it wasn’t exactly what happened out on the ice tonight, but Briggs lifted his stick with both hands a few times like he wanted to cross-check Connor, and once looked like he’d much rather grab him by the jersey and give him a punch. That time was right after Connor had scored a goal, which made zero sense.
Connor missed the comradery he had with his old team. He couldn’t get traded quickly enough.
He got the sense that if he talked with Katie about it, she would be level-headed and help him to see things more clearly. He liked the way he always felt after being with her, too, and had been all but counting down the time until he got to see her again.
But he shouldn’t be wanting to talk more with her or to see her more. Not when he was doing what he could to be traded far from Denver.
Since they all still wore their gear, they mostly walked single-file from the ice to the locker room, and he had guys behind and in front of him. He heard the distinct muffled rhythmic clacking noise of walking with hockey skates on foam padding speed up right before Briggs knocked his shoulder into Connor’s as he passed by him.
“Hey!” he called out to his teammate.
Henderson was just behind Connor and said, “Just ignore him.”
“What is his deal tonight?”
“He’s just agitated because we played the North Star, which is who Thompson got traded to at the same time as you. They were pretty good friends.”
“It’s not like I replaced him,” Connor said, then used his teeth to undo the strap on one of his gloves. “Or that I had any say in it even if I had.”
