“Yeah,” I whisper. “You?”
A slow smile touches his mouth. “Better than okay.”
It’s ridiculous how easy he can make me laugh, even when my pulse is still uneven.
After a beat, I push up on an elbow and scan the room. “Okay, where are my—”
He reaches over the side of the table, snags my discarded quarter-zip, and tosses it to me with that lazy captain grin.
“Looking for this?”
After we’re dressed, I wipe down the table and glance at the clock. The hallway’s still silent.
I turn back to him. His hair’s a mess again, shirt half untucked, grin too boyish for a man who’s usually all restraint.
“Declan Tremayne,” I say, hands on my hips. “Don’t forget you actually have PT to do.”
He laughs, low and easy. “Yes, ma’am.”
I take a steadying breath and re-knot my ponytail, willing my face back into something neutral. Professional.
Declan adjusts his quarter-zip and rolls his shoulders like he’s putting his armor back on.
He steps in close like he can’t help it.
One hand slides to my hip, and then he kisses me. Slow. Deep. The kind of kiss that makes my knees forget how to work. The kind that saysmine.
“Later,” he murmurs against my mouth.
By the time Declan’s steps fade down the hall, the room looks like nothing happened—just tape, ice, and routine.
The rest of the day blurs into meetings and recovery sessions, the kind of playoff haze where hours disappear.
Players cycle through, tape and ice flying, jokes tossed across the room. Dan’s calling for supplies, Vic’s swearing at a cooler that won’t latch. Routine takes over, but the memory of this morning keeps tugging a smile out of me anyway.
That night, the arena’s alive before the puck even drops—neon lights flashing off the glass, music pounding through the boards, a low roar that feels like it vibrates under my feet.
I stand in the tunnel, headset clipped, tablet in hand, the faint hum of static in my ear from Vic’s line to the bench. From here, I can see the edge of the ice—the spray when skates cut hard, the blur of Foxes blue streaking past the boards.
Declan’s at the bench, brace strapped over his slacks, posture locked in that quiet authority that stills everyone around him. He leans toward McCarthy, calm and precise even when the crowd hits a fever pitch. Every now and then, I catch the faintest glimpse of his profile through the blur of movement: jaw tight, eyes sharp, entirely in his element.
Seattle comes out flying, hammering the boards early. The first period’s a grind—no space, no rhythm. By the second, the Foxes start to find it. Torres crashes the net, Reed drives the rebound home, and suddenly the whole bench is up, gloves slamming the boards.
I can feel it through the floor, through the walls—the pulse of something alive again.
Declan doesn’t celebrate the way the others do. He just exhales once, small and sure, before clapping a hand on Reed’s shoulder when he returns to the bench. That’s him—steady, grounding, the calm in the noise.
By the third, it’s chaos. Bodies flying, sticks snapping, McCarthy barking line changes over the roar. I track every shift, every collision, every grimace that could mean something worse. Vic calls out updates from the bench, I log time stamps, adrenaline humming through my veins like current.
And then the final horn.
Foxes 3, Seattle 1.
They won Game 5 and locked in their spot in the Conference Final.
The bench erupts: helmets tossed, gloves flying, half the guys spilling onto the ice in a blur of white and blue.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement behind the bench—David, half-smile breaking through the noise as he slaps McCarthy on the shoulder. He glances my way just long enough to nod once.
