God, he was on another level.
I selfishly wanted him to stay here longer than his two-week stint. I also selfishly wanted that stint to get cut short so he wassent back to Seattle and I could get back to playing hockey at the level they paid me to play.
I was such a stupid mess for him. And why? It wasn’t like I had a shot with him.
Maybe that was why—we all want what we can’t have, right?
Except then his gaze would snag on me and linger for a beat too long. And his smile would be just a little brighter when it was directed at me. Somehow, we always found our way to each other, whether at a dinner table or on the bus, and he always seemed pleased to find himself beside me.
Or I was imagining things.
As were my teammates who weresureVasily and I had been flirting on the bus.
I closed my eyes, pushed out a breath, and then grabbed my water bottle. I sprayed some ice-cold water in my mouth, focusing on that and how it made my teeth ache. For fuck’s sake, I’d played against an ex-boyfriend before. My second year of major juniors, I’d had one of those super-dramatic teenage breakups, and just thinking about him had made my hormonal brain short circuit with anger, sadness, and a million other emotions. Two months later, there he was on the visitors’ bench, then beside me during the opening faceoff. It fucking sucked, but I’d played my heart out and hadn’t let him get to me. And he’d tried, too, chirping far below the belt in an attempt to throw me off my game.
Vasily was just… here. Existing. Hot as fuck, cute as hell. Sure, we’d gotten off on the wrong foot in the beginning, but we’d put that to bed, and we were fine. If I could play through the teenage angst of being in the same place as my dickweasel ex-boyfriend, I could sure as shit play as an adult alongside a man who made me horny and stupid.
I glanced over at him.
That… was a mistake.
He’d stripped off his jersey as we sometimes did to cool off. His black base layer clung to his powerful body, and his pads and chest protector made him look unreasonably hot.
More cold water, then. Much more.
Fortunately, Coach distracted us all with his intermission motivational speech. He didn’t single me out, which I appreciated; he knew I’d heard him on the bench. If I didn’t get my shit together starting next shift, I’d be hearing from him one-on-one.
That actually helped me focus. I hated getting reamed out by a coach. Those one-on-one conversations terrified me; even now, it made me feel like a kid getting chewed out by a teacher. I’d hated that as a kid, and I hated it even more as an adult. Avoiding that was enough to get my head together and make me play like a pro.
I did play better the next period. Still some turnovers I wasn’t proud of, but I also managed a couple of shots on goal. I racked up a secondary assist on Cams’s goal, too. Then in the third, I scored myself, which made me feel a million times better. I was still going to be a basket case as long as Vasily was on the team, but I could do this, damn it.
We soundly beat Edmonton, but there was no time to celebrate. The powers that be had us playing in Winnipeg the day after tomorrow, and since we were the plebs of the PHL instead of the superstars of the NAPH, that meant a bus ride.
So, after we’d all showered and eaten, we piled onto the bus for the thirteen-plus hour ride.
And fuck me…
Vasily sat right beside me.
I did a little mental fist pump in the same moment I tried not to panic. He was absolutely the source of all my distraction tonight, and for that reason, I simultaneously wanted to be as close to him and as far away from him as possible.
He glanced at me and smiled. I returned it.
And oh my God, this was going to be the longest bus rideever.
CHAPTER 12
VASILY
Though he’d rallied and the Orcas had won, Taylor was still wound up from tonight’s game. He couldn’t sit still. When I took the seat beside him on the bus, he tensed up even more, fidgeting with the cap on his water bottle. That wasn’t like him, but I could read between the lines. I was always a mess after I’d had a bad game too; I got it.
“Tough night?” I asked.
He stared down at his hands and nodded. “Yeah. I… I just couldn’t think. Head wasn’t in the game.” Before I could respond to that, he turned to me. “You’re getting close—just a few more games, and you’re back on the Rainiers.”
I smiled, but only for a second. I was excited to get back to my own team, but returning to Seattle meant…
“Two weeks seemed so much longer than it turned out to be,” I whispered.
