“On what?”
“Whether Evie is going to say the same shit at Game Night next week.”
Knox’s step daughter is in second grade and a total spitfire…kind of like his wife, Ivy. The Sierra’s strength coach is as fiery as her bright red hair and kicks our ass in the weight room on the regular.
Hell, I know my quads will never be the same.
Knox winces as he tugs on his jock. “Unfortunately, Evie has fully embraced meme culture.”
“Christ,” Riggs, our taciturn teammate and killer at the blue line, says.
One word.
But it’s enough to capture the emotion of the moment.
“I think I’m too old to understand what meme culture is,” I mutter.
“We’re definitely too old for that,” Lake says, though his eyes slide to the other side of me, where Storm is sitting.
I know exactly why.
Normally, the younger player would jump on the chance to give us shit, especially when such a softball like us all being a few years older than him was lobbed in his direction.
Decrepit. Gray hairs coming in. Is that a wrinkle?
Yeah, it’s almost too easy.
But—like he has far too often over the last months—Storm is silent…one might say stormy. The cloud of his anger constant and pitch black.
He’s talented, but struggling this season, and I know it’s because of the woman who’s just walked into the room.
Josephine—or, as she’s more commonly known—Coach Joey.
Storm fell hard for her.
And she…fell hard for Damon.
Fuck, but I feel for Storm. Sure, there are plenty of single guys on the roster for him to relate with—myself included—but it’s one thing to be single by choice and another to be single because the woman you want picked someone else.
Then to have to see that woman almost every day…
To have to work with her…
To have to watch her fall deeper and deeper in love with a man who isn’t you…
He’s spiraling.
And, based on the parade of women leaving his hotel rooms when we’re on the road, he’s been doing his best to fuck away his feelings.
I’m clearly not the only one who sees it isn’t working.
Lake’s gaze comes back to mine and he shakes his head slightly. I know he’s watching out for Storm too, same as Knox and Riggs are. We’re a team, but we’re a team that’s been through hell, so we’re not going to let him suffer alone.
But an intervention isn’t going to happen today.
He’s not ready.
Instead, tonight we’re going to play some fucking hockey—score some goals, make some plays, dish out some hits, maybe get into some fights, and?—
