He laughs. “Pick out what you want. This is something new for me too.”
“Oh, look, here are some stencils like I was telling you about—this one even has bullet journals, so you can make lists that are even on the page.”
He picks up the package. “Great. What else?”
I laugh.
This is fun.
I’m having fun.
He’s fun.
I can’t remember ever being out with a guy and thinking he was fun. Cute, funny, interesting—absolutely. But fun? Never.
He drops more money than I would normally be comfortable with on a first date—several hundred dollars—but his fancy pen was nearly a hundred so I don’t feel too bad about my share. And he seems genuinely excited.
“You’re not like any guy I’ve ever met,” I say as we walk out of the store with our hands linked and him carrying a fairly large shopping bag.
“You’re not like any woman I’ve ever met,” he responds.
“I enjoy your company,” I say slowly. “I’m a little nervous about what’s going to happen once training camp starts. I know how busy my dad gets. You must be at least half that busy.”
“Yes and no. Your dad’s job is less physical but requires more preparation and planning. Meetings with the higher-ups about strategy, lines, deciding who’s going to be captain, all the minutiae that we, as players, kind of take for granted. My job is to get enough sleep, eat right, stay in shape, and focus on what I have to do every time I’m on the ice. But timewise, that’s the equivalent of a full-time job. I still have time to see friends, go out on dates, keep up with life. The time suck is really the travel.”
“Yeah.”
“But we’ll have a lot of time to talk once I start traveling, because I spend so much time doing nothing. On planes. At night in our hotel rooms. Hockey is like four hours on a game day, maybe six if we have a morning skate. Almost zero hours on a travel day, maybe a couple if there’s a meeting or team dinner. I sleep for eight. That leaves me a lot of time to talk to you.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
He leans over and presses a soft kiss on my cheek. “We’ll figure it out, Jayne. You’ll see.”
For some reason, I believe him.
And that makes me incredibly happy.
Chapter
Seventeen
Bodi
The first week of training camp is usually dedicated to rookies. The first part is the combine, where they have to show just how fit they are, and then there are a lot of scrimmages and such so the coaching staff can figure out who’s going and who’s staying. However, since this is an expansion team, it was announced that we all have to participate—in everything.
Like we’re all rookies trying to earn our places on the team.
Which kind of sucks.
It’s nice to get to a place in your career where you’re beyond that, but apparently, Coach Morrison has his own ideas about things.
The only real exception to that is Vik. He’s going to be our starting goalie unless and until he can’t win games for us. The situation is more worrisome for Simon, as the backup, because the minor league kid—a guy named Jethro, of all things—is pretty damn good. He’s green but up-and-coming, so Simon is going to have to fight for his place as the back-up, something he wasn’t anticipating.
“This is bullshit,” he mutters as we break for lunch on Wednesday. “I’m way too old for this. I could have stayed in Vegas and not had to worry about any of this.”
“It keeps us on our toes,” West says diplomatically.
“Yeah, coming from a guy who not only is guaranteed a spot on the team but is also in the running for captain,” Simon quips.
