“I wanted to wait until exactly the right moment. You know, you’re not the easiest person to deal with, at least not when it comes to hockey.”
“So, you’re going to make this my fault then?”
When he rolled his eyes, I stopped myself. Keeping my mouth closed presented a greater struggle than I could’ve imagined. Besides, I didn’t want to start a fight no matter what.
“I’m sorry.” I fell back onto the couch and placed a hand over my forehead. “I’m just a little anxious, you know?”
“Of course I do. I’m a hockey player, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
I laughed but not because I found anything funny. Jakob could be the perfect pain in the ass without ever raising his voice—or investing much effort at all. That alone made me want to scream. When I glanced at his gorgeous face, I knew what I could lose if I didn’t sort this out.
“The Riptides might not know about us yet,” I said, “but they’re already pushing me to make some choices.”
“You too, huh?”
I nodded. “They know my attention is getting pulled in more than one direction, and it shows. It doesn’t matter what’s causing it. They want my focus to be aimed in only one direction. Get what I’m saying?”
“And if our teams wind up playing each other…”
“It could all come out. But I don’t know if it would even have to happen that way. If we play each other, there’s no way on earth I’ll be able to focus. That’s the only reason we lost that game to you guys last week.”
“Oh, sothat’sthe reason now? Thanks for telling me. For a moment there, I thought I was losing my mind.”
“You know it’s the reason.”
“Honestly, I thought it was because the Riptides are inferior to the Larkin Lions in every way.”
I gritted my teeth, wanting to strangle my boyfriend in the worst way, but managed to restrain myself. After all, he was the confirmed master of driving me insane.
“We’re not inferior to you guys at all,” I said. “Get that idea out of your head. I just know that if we play each other in the playoffs, it’ll be a total freaking disaster.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look, what are the odds that we’ll actually play each other?”
I shrugged and sighed. “I can’t put a number on it.”
“It might not be as bad as you think. We both barely squeezed into the tournament, right?”
“Hate to look at it that way, but?—”
“It is what it is, Zane. Neither team is division champion, and that means we won’t play each other in the first round for sure.”
“Okay, now I’m following.”
“We won’t play each other in the second round either. Well, I guess it’s not totally impossible.”
“Just not very likely.”
“Exactly. There obviouslyisa scenario by which we could wind up squaring off against each other.”
“And what’s that?”
“What are the odds of the Riptides coming within a country mile of the title game anyway?”
Now I gritted my teeth and grunted. And then I laughed when I saw the look on my boyfriend’s face. Even when we both needed to be serious, he couldn’t help flashing me that look, and it helped to keep me loose.
