“Thanks,” Connor says. He uses the towel I gave him to wipe his neck, which is sweating again. Are these girls making him nervous? I grin. That’s adorable.
She steps closer to him and lifts onto her tiptoes to whisper not so subtly into his ear. “I also have your jersey. I wear it to bed.”
I almost choke, trying to stop myself from laughing out loud.
Her friend notices and glares at me. “Who are you?” she asks.
Connor takes a step back to put some distance between himself and the woman that’s trying to pull him into her clutches. He places his hand on my shoulder. “This is Gavin Marshal. He’s a first line forward and alternate captain for the Buffalo Blizzards.”
“Oh!” the spare woman says. Her expression towards me lightens. “I didn’t realize.”
I grin at her. “So I take it you don’t sleep in my jersey.”
This time it’s Connor who barely conceals his laughter. He hides it by checking his watch. “It was nice to meet you, ladies,” he says. “But we need to get going. As I’m sure you can imagine, we’re on a very tight and busy schedule while we’re here.”
“Of course,” the woman who’s had eyes for Connor says. Then, undeterred, she adds, “Maybe we can catch up later? You can come to my room and sign my jersey.”
I knock him with my elbow. “Yeah, Connor. Why don’t you go sign her jersey.”
He flashes me a look and his nostrils flare, causing the bridge of his nose to wrinkle. “Tempting,” he says to her. “But I need to keep my focus. If you’d like me to sign your jersey, I can do it in the hotel lobby this afternoon when we return from practice.” He smiles at her. “You can probably get the entire team to sign.” He pats me on the back and gives me a forceful push that if I was a smaller man,would have moved me. “Come on, Marshal. Or we’re going to be late for breakfast.”
I flutter my fingers at the women and give them a wink. “Bye-bye, ladies.”
“You’re such a dick,” Connor says with a laugh under his breath once we reach the door.
“You like it,” I say, placing my hands on his shoulders to jostle him.
“You’re right.” He flushes again. “I do.”
And yep. Unless I can get this under control, I’m right back to being completely fucked.
SEVEN
Connor
Practice is weird, and it has nothing to do with Gavin and this unwise flirtation we’ve started. In fact, it’s possible our brief flirtation is making us the most effective skaters on the ice. No one else is motivated, and I can’t blame it on everyone being hungover this time. Maybe it’s because of the brawl from yesterday and the bad press it’s brought upon all of us.Or maybe we are just a terrible group of players who have all gotten too complacent about being the best of the best on our own teams. I know one thing. We could all use an attitude adjustment, that’s for sure.
“Good hustle, guys!” I try to rally them with enthusiasm as we run drills, passing the puck back and forth from one end of the rink to the other and then into the net. There’s a lot of good teams forming around the world, but Canada, in particular, is going to make this tough for us with their collective speed.“We’ll need to skate harder than the rest if we want to win this!”
“Give it a rest, Skipper,” Bradley Warren says. God, I hope that nickname doesn’t stick. He sends a slap shot way over the net. It hits the glass with a loud thunk.
“Hey.” Gavin lightly shoulder checks him when he comes to a stop by his side. “Show your captain some respect.”
“Right.” Bradley hits him back but is almost knocked off his feet by his own impact. Gavin, of course, stands there unfazed. “As if you respect the little kiss-ass.”
Gavin uses his stick to slide a puck closer to him, then flicks it towards me. “I respect him more than you, I can tell you that.”
“Yeah, right,” Bradley says. “I’ve seen your highlight reel. You’ve laid him out like roadkill and smiled about it.”
“You sound envious,” Gavin says, and I pass the puck back to him. He swirls it around a bit before he blindly passes it back to me.
“Of you?” Bradley scoffs. “I don’t think so.”
Gavin grabs a second puck and lazily knocks it into an unattended net. He stands still and looks at Bradley.
“Of Connor,” he says.
I pass him back the puck we were both playing with, and he slaps that one into the net as well, punctuating his comment.
