“Look at Smitty,” Joel Russo calls to the others with a head jerk in my direction and a smirk. “Who are you trying to impress?”
I grin and resist the urge to look over where Nikki Sullivan is sitting. “Your mother.”
“Haha.”
We take one-timers from different spots on the ice, giving us different angles to shoot on the net. I narrow my eyes and zone in as another player passes the puck to me and I snap it into the net, smashing target after target.
“Yeah!” I pump a fist in the air when I’m done, having snagged more points. I’m in second place.
Stick handling and passing are the other two competitions I’m in, and I’m confident about those skills. Stick handling is something I’ve excelled at since I was about six years old. So I’m not surprised that I move on to the next round, which is one-on-one against the goalies.
Also fun for me. I fucking love putting the puck behind the tender.
I’m still in second place at the end of this round, which means I’m through to the last round—the obstacle course.
Nikki is still sitting there, watching. Good for her. This isn’t the most exciting stuff, not like an actual hockey game, but I give her credit for hanging in here. I straighten my beanie and prepare to skate.
Fuck, they made this hard. None of us is doing great. We’re all tired, our energy sucked dry, but we’re gonna finish this for our pride.
And I’m no different, though my score is respectable. The winner is Joel Russo, who’s a fucking machine, easily accomplishing that challenge and winning the entire competition, including the million dollars.
I do a brief TV interview before leaving the ice, then participate in the post-skills competition presser. “This was a lot of fun,” I say. “I hope the fans enjoyed it.”
Finally, I’m done. And Nikki Sullivan is long gone, I’m sure.
Damn.
Changing out of our jerseys in the locker room, the other guys and I make plans to meet in another one of the many bars in the hotel. I definitely need a beer or three after that.
I walk into the sports bar with Wyatt Bell, Baz Chadha, who Bell knows from junior hockey, and Jimmy Jones. We check out the place and head to the bar first. As with everywhere in Vegas, slot machines are lined up at the front but we pass by them. Several big screens are playing sporting events, including what appears to be a replay of the skills competition we just finished. I shake my head.
With drinks in hand, we move to the low wall separating the bar from the seating area. And I see her. Nikki.
She’s standing at the end of the bar, the center of attention in a group of guys. Hockey players. The guys who weren’t in the skills competition. Assholes.
I lift my chin and jerk my head toward them, and Bell and Chadha follow me over to join the group. I’m not missing this chance.
Tonight she’s wearing jeans again, with thick-soled black boots, and a graphic T-shirt with what appears to be a picture of Debbie Harry on it. Her long dark brown hair shines in the lights of the bar and her smile glows. The guys are all gathered around her like she’s a fire in the middle of the Alaskan tundra.
“When I went to Australia for the first time, I was so jet-lagged I was hallucinating,” she tells everyone. “I woke up from a nap and asked my manager why the hotel room was full of hamsters. He was, what the fuck? I kept insisting there were hamsters playing little musical instruments until finally I realized how bonkers I sounded, and I said, what am I talking about? And he said, I have no idea… but then, I usually don’t.”
Everyone cracks up laughing and I grin. Her face is animated when she talks, and I can’t stop watching the way her full lips form words. Gorgeous and funny. Wow.
“Hey!” She sees me and Bell. “There’s my team! Part of my team, anyway. Hi, Bellsy! Hi, Smitty!”
“Hey,” Bell says, then introduces her to Chadha.
“That happened to me too after they gave me corticosteroids when I was injured,” I tell her. “I didn’t react well to them. I saw dinosaurs. Little pink and blue dinosaurs. Everywhere. They kept telling me I was gonna be okay.”
Nikki laughs delightedly. “Little dinosaurs! I love it.”
My chest inflates as I grin back at her. Fuck yeah. I made her laugh. I’m probably immortal now.
“How could they give you steroids?” she asks. “Isn’t that illegal for athletes?”
“Those are anabolic steroids. They enhance performance. This was corticosteroids. They’re used to treat inflammation. They’re okay. I mean, they’re legal. Obviously they weren’t okay for me since I was tripping balls.”
She laughs again. “What kind of injury did you have?”
