And I remembered his name.
Not Wils—Taylor.
That was definitely Taylor. The guy from the dance club… and my temporary linemate.
Fucking hell. This was going to be the longest two weeks of my life.
CHAPTER 3
TAYLOR
I could live with being bumped down to the third line for one game. Coach did that whenever he brought in a Rainier for a conditioning loan, which had happened three times since last season. It wasn’t a demotion for me, just a way to ease the injured player back into the game. No skin off my nose.
But whether we were top line, fourth line—whatever—I wasn’t sure I could handle being linemates withhim.
I’d known Vasily was coming up. It wasn’t exactly a big secret when the NAPH team sent someone to the minors, no matter if it was for disciplinary reasons, to get their shit together, or because they were about to come off injured reserve. When someone was coming down, we all knew about it. Vasily had been practicing with the Rainiers this past week, and we’d known he’d be here as soon as they left for their road trip.
I’d had a solid week to mentally prepare for this, and now that he was here…
I was not mentally prepared. At all. Not for him to be here, and sure as shit not for him to be centering my goddamned line.
That was stupid, though. So what if he was here? We’d met at a club. We’d danced for a few songs, and we’d made out a little,and then he’d told me he wasn’t interested. End of story. No big deal.
Right. No big deal. Which totally explained why just hearing his name made my stomach roil with renewed embarrassment. Seeing him here? On the ice with me and my teammates? Ugh. Fuck my life. That would make it abreezeto concentrate during practice, wouldn’t it?
Hell, that temporary drop to the third line was probably just as well. I’d play fewer minutes and have less opportunity to make an ass of myself while I was too focused on my linemate.
Wasn’t much I could do about it, though, so I focused intently—well, tried to—on the drill that Coach Watts, our offensive coach, was laying out. It was a zone entry drill we’d done a million times before, so I knew it by heart, but I hung on his every word. I concentrated hard on every gesture he made and every line he drew on the well-worn whiteboard.
Not on the broad-shouldered player standing six feet away from me. Not on the memory of watching him walk away. Not on how much I’d been kicking myself for months for even thinking I’d had a shot with Vasily fucking Abashev.
The whistle blew. Wait, what? What were we doing?
Oh. Right. The drill.
The zone entry drill.
The one I could run through in my sleep.
Where… was I supposed to…
I snapped out of it about two seconds before one of my coaches probably would’ve had my head, and I took my place in the defensive zone.
Coach Watts blew the whistle and passed a puck to Vasily. Immediately, Vasily, Cameron, and I flew into the neutral zone. Waverly, one of our defensemen, was poised and ready to stop me, so I barreled toward him. At the last possible moment, I whipped the puck across the ice. It connected with Vasily’s tape.He sent it back to Cams, who very nearly overskated it. Cams recovered, though, and he snapped the puck on goal. Hoskins batted it away with his paddle, but still, it was a good effort.
Not bad for our first drill as a line, and despite being distracted all to shit, I hadn’t made any mistakes.
“Nice job,” Coach Marks called out to us as Coach Watts got the second line started. He gestured at me, then Vasily. “Wils, let’s try to keep it onside on the next pass, yeah?”
I winced. I’d been offside? Shit, probably. I’d been so focused onnotfocusing on Vasily that I’d lost track of where both of my linemates were. Enough, apparently, to put us offside.
“Got it, Coach,” I called out, and I did. Next run, I’d be onside, damn it.
I was, too… and completely borked my pass to Vasily.
Fuck’s sake.
It took all I had not to snap my stick over my thigh. It wasn’t even that bad of a mistake, but I was pissed. I hated myself for being distracted to the point it affected my play. I hated myself for caring that Vasily was here. Who the hell cared about him? So what if he’d rejected me? So what if he hadn’t noticed me when we’d gone to training camp before? He hadn’t been under any obligation to do anything in either of those situations. And he might not have even remembered me from the dance club because really, who remembered everyone they ever ran into on a dancefloor? I sure didn’t, and I was stupid to think he would.
