Opportunity. Sure.
Make no mistake, that was pure, unadulterated sarcasm.
I’m thirty-one—with a surgically repaired shoulder and knee—and a point to prove to every coach, player, and armchair analyst who thinks I’m done.
I want to retire on my terms and not because my body gives up. But my pride refuses to let that happen. I’m going to play at least until the same age as my father was when he hung up his skates—never mind that I intend to kiss the Stanley Cup again.
“Speaking of brooding, any word from your old man? I heard the Mustangs are having a rough season.” Liam, our captain, gets shushed by his wife.
My jaw tightens automatically. Dad was captain of the Utah Mustangs when these guys were still in diapers. Now, he’s the coach. His shadow follows me everywhere I go. Lane Sheridan Senior, the legend. The standard I’ve been measured against my entire career. The one he’s always pushed me to be better, while also keeping his hockey skate firmly on top of mine, so I don’t exceed his accomplishments.
The man ismercurial.
“Haven’t talked to him lately,” I say, which is true.
Our conversations are limited to hockey and family emergencies, which usually involve my sister’s drama or a media obligation. My relationship with my father is complicated at best and strained at worst, especially since Desi went off the rails and became the family blue sheep—her hair color, the last time I saw her, which was seven years ago now? That can’t be right.
She has a kid, and while I’ve tried to remind her that I’m her brother—family—who’d like to be part of her life, it’s hard to keep up. No, actually, last time we were in touch, she was in Hawaii and had gone blond, but her hair wasn’t as silky soft as the woman’s on the stage—either genuinely hypnotized or clucking like a chicken because she’s in on the act.
“Man, I can’t imagine having that kind of pressure,” Mikey says with an air of sympathy in his voice. “Following in those skates has got to be?—”
Liam grunts while ushering us to sit in the front row. “I can.” His father, another hockey legend from Canada by way of Germany, and his brother are notorious NHL players.
“Guys, hush!” another one of the hockey wives hisses.
“Can’t theynottalk about hockey for more than thirty seconds?” a brunette asks.
A tall woman with olive skin shakes her head. “Highly unlikely.”
Just then, the crowd erupts with laughter, likely at something the hypnotist made the woman on the stage do while under his spell. Or not. I have as many doubts about this as I do about how playing for the Knights will go.
“Now that’s a sight to improve anyone’s mood,” Mikey says.
But whatever it was, I missed it. The blond woman whom I noticed earlier across the room is as stunning when dancing as she is when clucking like a hen.
Before the guys interrupted my perfectly good position leaning against the wall, Nina, volunteered by her friends, looked absolutely mortified to be up there.
Gorgeous in her sparkly ice-blue gown that flatters her figure, at first, she looked like she’d rather be somewhere else. Notanywhereelse like me. But some place specific. There’s a distinction. Now, she’s slightly dazed, yet serene at the same time.
“Like what you see?” Mikey chuckles, noticing my attention is solely focused on Nina.
I blink slowly, unable to tear my gaze away as she spins in a circle. I guess that’s a sufficient answer because Mikey goes quiet. Either that or his wife scolded him again.
The bottom of Nina’s dress flares. She smiles a faraway smile, but it’s there, nonetheless. I wonder if she’s cold in that dress, or if the stage lights are keeping her warm.
Her straight blond hair is shiny and her gray eyes seem to sparkle like stars even from this distance. I don’t notice a ring on her finger, but her arms are strong, like she works hard.
“Go, Nina!” someone in the crowd calls out.
A bunch of the women cheer.
But she doesn’t respond. Either she didn’t hear them, she’s trained to ignore the audience as part of the act, or she really is in a trance.
The hypnotist—Lucian Little—is asking her questions, and her answers make me smile despite my foul mood. She’s honest to the point of being funny, talking about yeast and butter temperatures like they’re the most important things in the world.
Maybe they are, in hers.
Lucian says, “Earlier, I asked you about true love. You told me that you want to believe in the kind that lasts. Is that correct?”
