A bus sighed at the curb, and the train rattled one block over. The market’s cooler pulled air in and the camera over the door kept its red dot.
“You stand between me and the game,” I said. “Between me and months of pay.”
“It’s my job,” Blair said, as if it were no big deal. “I need to know who I’m working with.”
Six.
“You think you know me now?”
“I think you like hurting people,” he said.
His words got under my skin. I felt them crawl up my back and through my neck.
I won’t touch him. I can’t.
One.
The hand flipped to WALK.
“No,” I said. “I like shutting people up.”
Without another word, I turned and left.
But the hunger followed.
I couldn’t stop thinkingabout Blair.
Back in my apartment, I paced the floors. A prisoner trapped in his cell, rapidly losing his lucidity. I was wired. Restless. Mymuscles twitched with an energy I couldn’t burn off. Not fury at Travis, not the session.
Blair.
The expression on his face when Travis got under his skin. How Blair held himself together, barely, as he walked a tightrope. And later, when I’d leaned in so close I could hear his breath, he hadn’t backed down.
I hated that I noticed everything. Every movement. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I dropped to the floor and did pushups until I gasped. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, counting in my head. By one hundred, my arms shook so much I thought I’d lose balance. By one fifty, sweat had started to drip on the floor.
But I pushed harder anyway.
I cracked open my gear bag and my living room suddenly turned into the locker room. Rubber, sweat. Tiger Balm. The ice wasn’t there but my hands insisted on it. They shook and begged to be allowed near the rink again.
Nothing worked, so I rushed to the gym where I slammed weights and attempted to bench press heat from my head.
But the feeling didn’t fade.
The flicker in Blair’s eyes. How he’d steeled himself when Travis wouldn’t shut up. The tiny shake in Blair’s hands he assumed no one noticed.
I wondered how it might feel to be the one to make him lose his composure completely.
And I got hard thinking about it.
Didn’t make sense. Wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d had women throw themselves at me for years. Being an NHL player came with fame and money.
I knew what I wanted. I’d never even looked at a guy that way until Blair.
He was different from anyone I’d ever known. If I could’ve ripped this thing out of me, I would in a flash. Whatever the hell it was.
This wasn’t attraction. It couldn’t be, not in a million years. Had to be adrenaline, leftover intensity from Travis’s bullshit and the big hockey fight that hung over me.
