“I don’t think so, Jonathan. Get your ass back here,” Colleen calls out.
He freezes with one foot off the ground.
“If you stand really still, she won’t see you,” I say with a grin.
He turns around slowly, like when people are being chased in the movies and realize the monster is right behind them. She stomps over to him in her heels and shoves a pen in his hand.
“Now, be a good captain and sign some merch. Please.”
He makes a disgruntled noise. “Damn, do you boss your husband around like this?”
“I sure do. Now, get.” Smiling, she gives him a light shove.
He makes his way down the table, going a lot quicker than me and Blaine, and as he gets closer, my eyes drop to his athletic shorts, and I let out a low whistle.
“Those are some really tiny shorts, Peyton capybara.” I poke his bare thigh with the end of my pen. “Bend over at the wrong time and I’ll be able to see your balls, and I’ve already seen them twice today. Which is two times too many.”
His face cracks in a cocky grin. “What can I say? Thick thighs save lives, and what saves lives shouldn’t be contained.”
I snort out a laugh. “I don’t think that’s the saying, but okay.”
When I get to the end of the table, I turn to face Peyton again and crouch down, then quickly sign his leg.
“What are you doing?” he splutters but doesn’t try to move.
“Making it more valuable.” I draw a big heart next to my name, then a smiley face on his knee. I stand back to inspect my work. “Perfect.”
He looks down at his leg and sighs. “It’s going to take days for that to come off, you know.”
My smile turns wicked, but before I can move to the other side of the corridor, one of the media girls makes me pose with Peyton’s signed leg. I point at my amazing artwork and give a wide, toothy grin. Then I slap his inner thigh and jog over to the pile of stuff I need to personalize with a giggle.
I’m finishing up signing the stack of jerseys when the fire alarm blares. I flinch so hard at the harsh sound that there’s an audible crack in my neck.
“What the fuck is that?” Blaine asks, glancing around in confusion.
“The fire alarm,” Peyton replies, then turns to address the rookies in the corridor, like the good captain he is. “Come on, boys, get your asses moving. Outside.”
There’s a flurry of activity as people come out of the training and locker rooms, and my spine stiffens at the sense of panic coming off the others in waves, my palms beginning to sweat as my heart beats faster in my chest. When we walk around the corner that leads to the fire exit doors, we’re hit with the smell of smoke.
“Shit, there’s an actual fire?” Blaine cranes his neck, trying to look down the other side of the corridor that leads to the ice and the coaches’ offices.
“I guess so,” Peyton replies, placing his hands on his shoulders and steering him toward the fire exit doors.
One of the rookies opens the doors, and I immediately tense at the frigid February air. There’s still snow on the ground, and I’m only wearing a hoodie and my compression tights. I tug my sleeves over my hands and rub my arms frantically over my hoodie, teeth chattering audibly as I shiver.
“What happened?” Zach asks Coach Harris when he appears. There’s a deep crease in his forehead. I call it his stress frown.
“The fucking Zamboni caught fire. Apparently, they’ve known about a faulty wire or something, and nobody thought to tell me or do anything to fix it.” He runs a hand through his short hair. “I don’t know the details, but the fire department is on the way.”
In my attempt to get warm, I walk around and jump on the spot, and as everyone makes their way outside, I note an obvious absence.
I quickly turn around and storm over to Coach. He has his phone to his ear, but I speak anyway because this is important.
“Where’s Boomer?” I ask in a panic.
“Hang on a sec, Troy,” he says to the GM on the phone. Oops. “I put him in my office. Why?”
All my blood rushes from my head.
