He nods his head like “I’m sure you are.”
“You are so lucky you need both feet to do your job, or else your toe would be wearing my heel,” I warn, turning now and stepping away from my chair.
“You aren’t leaving, are you?” Seth asks me and I nod my head.
“It’s been a long day. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.” I smile at him.
“Well, at least let me walk you to your car,” he offers. I nod at him as he puts his hand at the base of my back, very much like Zane did before, but again, no romantic feelings surface.
“I think I’m good,” I reply before we walk out the door, “lots of people outside.” I point at some of the guys outside shooting the shit. “But thank you.”
He leans in and kisses my cheek. “Thank you for everything,” he says, and I just nod at him as I walk out of the restaurant and see a couple of the players there with Zane. His eyes are now trained on me, and I don’t think they’ve left me all night. “Night, boys,” I say, avoiding looking at him. “Thanks for today.” I head to my SUV, put it in reverse, and drive away from him and his eyes.
twenty-one
Zane
I pull into the parking garage and see Clive pointing at one of his guys coming from the side. I stop my car right next to him. “Hey, Coach,” he says once I open the door and step out.
“Hey, Clive,” I reply to him, “you’re going to be joining us, right?”
He nods his head. “Sure thing.”
“Good. I can’t wait to meet your wife,” I tell him, and he smiles big as he gets into my SUV and goes to park it.
I walk into the arena and there are people everywhere. “Hey,” I say, making sure I stop and say hello to everyone. “Thanks for coming,” I tell them. When I had this idea of doing a Family Day to build community within the team, I had no idea what went into the planning of it. But Jill took off with my idea and now everyone who is associated with the team has been invited with their family. Everyone from the kitchen staff to the players are here with their families. From the last head count, it was three hundred and forty-seven people.
“Hey, Coach,” Eric says from behind me, and I turn to look at him. He walks in with his wife and daughter.
“Hi,” I reply and smile at his daughter, then nod at his wife. “Thank you for coming in on a Saturday night.” She smiles. “I know it’s not often we have Saturday off, and now he still has to come to work.”
“It’s not work,” she counters. “He’s been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks.”
“Good.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “He’s my left hand and sometimes part of my right hand.” He nods his head at me. “I’m going to go and see if Jill needs anything from me.”
“She did mention a weekend at the Four Seasons including spa treatments.” Eric chuckles and I turn to walk out to the back of the arena and out to the tent-covered area. We were going to do it inside, but there were too many things coming in that it was easier to just do it behind the building, where there is an empty football practice field and we do off-ice drills out there when we can.
I look around to see long picnic tables everywhere. The one thing we did was make sure there were at least enough chairs for everyone, even though we didn’t think everyone would be sitting at the same time.
On the side there are six food trucks all set up to feed us, everything from burgers to tacos to funnel cakes and churros.
There are bouncy houses for the kids and then, I don’t know how Jill did it, but she found some adult bouncy houses too. There is a pit that has two poles you stand up on and you try to knock the other person off with a stick with foam at both ends.
The area is half full as I make it across to the crowd, stopping to thank everyone I see for coming. I look over to see if Cam is here yet, but I don’t see him. I see Brad and Ken, who are standing side by side. “Gentlemen,” I say, holding out my hand. Ken smirks at me, grabbing my hand and Brad does it just because there could be people looking over at us, and the last thing he wants is negative press. It’s okay for me to get it, which I’ve been getting on the daily, but not the big man in charge. “Quite a turnout,” I say, observing everyone.
“Lots of time and energy went into this,” Brad states. “Let’s hope it transfers to the ice.”
“One can hope,” I say, putting my hands in my pockets. “I’m going to go and make sure I see all the guys.”
I don’t bother waiting for him to answer before walking over to some of the rookies who have arrived. “Hey, guys,” I say and shake hands with each of them. “Spread out, yeah, and get to know each other and their families.”
“It’s almost like speed dating,” one of them mentions, and I look down at my shoes to not laugh at him. “You have five minutes to get to know the other person and then, at the end, if you guys have a connection, you write the name on a paper.”
“No,” I immediately shake my head, “this is not like that at all.” The other guys try not to laugh at him. “Everyone here is a part of the team in one way or another. It’s about meeting who is important to them. It’s who you guys play for.”
I look over and my heart stops in my chest. Or maybe it fucking starts, I don’t know, all I know is it’s becoming harder to breathe when she’s around, even if she isn’t right next to me. My heart knows when she’s even in the fucking room. It’s like my body has Victoria radar built into it, and it comes alive when she’s around.
I take her in, her hair flipped to the side reminding me of the mark I left on her, and I see her eyes light up as she points to the side talking to Jagger, who is in Jaxon’s arms. “I’ll be back,” I say to the guys. “Mingle.” I point to the people.
