“I didn’t want to. Don’t want to be here.” I drop onto his bed. “Make this quick.”
“You must be the only person in the world who doesn’t like surprises.”
“What in the world could I possibly need that I don’t already have?” I groan.
“Two tickets to the Tornadoes versus Diamonds game.”
Everything in my body freezes.
“Diamonds?” I ask, slowly turning my head toward Étienne, who has a shit-eating grin on his face. “Why would I want to see them?”
His smile falls, turning into a deep frown. “Don’t give me your shit, Nico. I know you miss Roman.”
I scoff, jumping to my feet. “And going to sit in the stands and watch him play from afar, is supposed to… what? Scratch my itch? What could watching him in person possibly do that watching him on TV can’t? Which I have been avoiding, by the way, but I just—” I growl, throwing my arms up, with nothing left to say. When I meet Étienne’s eyes, he has the audacity to look annoyed.
“Are you done? Because that little outburst tells me all I need to know.” He gets up, coming to stand in front of me and putting both arms on my shoulders. “We’re not just going to watch him. We’re going toseehim.”
“What?” I breathe out.
He sighs, dropping his head for just a moment before looking back up at me. “It was Connor.”
“Connor…”
“The guy I was seeing in Vancouver.”
My eyes widen. “Oh…”
“Yeah, so, this isn’t just for you. It’s for us. Maybe, I, uh… found out what hotel they’re staying at.”
“You creep,” I say with a grin.
He shrugs. “So, are you coming with me?”
I grab his face and kiss his forehead, hard and dramatic. “Hell yes, I am going with you, Étienne.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Roman
We’re going to the playoffs. We’ve secured a spot, but we still have a few regular season games to go to. Including this one against the Tornadoes, which is our last game in Canada for the season—until playoffs when we may end up playing against a Canadian team and will have to come back.
I try not to think about how easy it would be to reach out to Nico.
He hasn’t texted me, so I’m taking that as a sign of him moving on. If he wanted something to do with me, he could easily figure out how to find me. My schedule is public. His… well, it’s a lot harder to figure out what he’s doing these days. Trust me, I’ve tried.
All I keep getting is that his schedule for touring and shows will be “announced soon.”
Guess it’s better off this way instead of obsessing about it. If I knew where he was, I may actually show up to his house. And that could go really bad if he’s done with this…
Our gear is on and we line up to head out of the tunnel. As a team, we skate onto the ice for warm-ups. The crowd both boos and cheers when we get onto the ice, most of them loyal to their own team. I see some black in the crowd tonight though, meaning we have some fans here, which is always a comfort.
The room is dim with lights flashing around the crowd and the ice. We skate around, shooting pucks into the empty net. We stop and stretch, skate some more, and go through our typical warm-up routine.
Getting back into regular games has been easy. I’ve played with this team my entire hockey career, and a lot of the same guys have stuck around too. We play well together, and taking a break to play with others was the difficult part. Coming back here? It’s what I know. And we’re doing well this year. We have an actual chance to win the cup, and that… that’s almost more exciting than the gold because I’m doing this with my team. The ones who have made me something and been there my whole career.
I glance up at the crowd instinctively, scanning it for someone I know isn’t there.
He’s made no attempt to reach out, so there’s no way he’d show up at a game randomly. That’s not really his style. If he was here, he’d make himself known immediately.
