But maybe the shit in my head isn’t as hidden as I thought. Callum has been giving me weird looks all night, and even Maverick stopped to give me one of his reassuring little head nods.
We hit the ice. Normally, I’m good at clearing my head. Normally, the only thing that has ever really mattered to me is hockey, the game. So it’s never really been that hard for me to stop thinking about whatever else is going on. Normally, I’d get over the shit with Mandy. With that stupid fucking picture.
But I’m not thinking about Mandy or Christie Elle or the fucking mob of media outside my place.
I’m thinking about Wren.
About the way her body felt against mine, the push of her ribs, the gentle swell of her breasts. Her hips, like living things, in my hands. The sweet sight of that little black dress, and how badly I wanted to peel it off of her.
Obsessively, I’ve thought about what the dress would feel like coming off her body. Last night, I’d tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Each time I got close, my brain offered up a tiny little piece of that night—a close-up.
Wren’s breath against my cheek. The sound from her throat when I’d kissed her collarbone. The specific scent of that fucking perfume, haunting me.
The Wild came to play today.
Their line comes at us with an aggressive style, just like Wren said they would. They’re fore-checking roughly, forcing turnovers in our defensive zone. Their center is all over me, stick-checking, bumping, making each connection with the puck a fucking battle.
Maverick calls to me from the blue line as I cycle the puck behind our net, buying time for Cal or Petrov to get open. But when I look up, trying to find an outlet pass, something strange happens to me.
I can’t read the ice.
It only lasts for a split second, but it’s long enough.
The Wild’s winger reads my hesitation perfectly, stepping into the passing lane and picking off my outlet attempt. I scramble back, trying to break up the play before they can get a clean shot.
I only manage to get my stick on the pass at the last second, deflecting it harmlessly into the corner. Vic shouts something from the bench, but I don’t catch it.
I’m being sloppy.
I’mneversloppy.
Hating every fucking minute of it, I take advice from Grayson, focusing on the feel of my skates against the ice. On the cold air filtering into my lungs.
By the start of the third period, we’re tied up. And I decide to lean into the distraction, following the thread of Wren back into what we might say after the game. How she’ll break this down, easily present to me what we could have done better, how we could have picked the Wild apart.
We’re on the defensive with just a minute left in the game. The Wild pull their goalie. The clock ticks down to overtime, and once again, I hear Maverick shout at me.
This time, when my head snaps around toward him, everything is perfectly lined up.
An outlet pass from him, hitting me in stride at center ice.
Nothing but the empty net yawning ahead of me.
When my stick connects with the puck, it’s euphoria. That crisp, flat sensation in the back of my skull, an indication of success.
The puck sails into the goal with thirty-one seconds left on the clock. The buzzer blows, the Wild skate past me with their arms down, pissed off and upset that their play to pull the goalie backfired like this.
Cal slams into me from the left side. “Hellyeah!”
More clapping on my shoulders, more cheering. I try to resist the urge, but it’s like my head is connected to a string, and that string is running straight to Wren Beaumont.
I look up and find her in the stands, on her feet and cheering. When her eyes meet mine, I can’t stop a smile from sliding over my face.
Wren
When I woke up this morning in Los Angeles, and the world wasn’t eagerly drinking in pictures of Luca McKenzie and I, it made me think that maybe I was mistaken. Maybe we weren’t being followed by a member of the press. Maybe that was some weird perv, and I put on a little performance for him with absolutely nothing to show for it.
A few hours later, boarding the plane with Luca, it had taken everything in my power not to stare at him. To think about the feeling of his hands on my hips, the way he’d pressed me into the wall, the way all the air had whooshed from my lungs—not at the impact, but from the sensation.
