An hour and a half later, the Lightning won.
The bar rattled with cheers and applause.
Benji’s glitter sign—oh God, he’d made a sign somewhere between the second and third periods—got held aloft like a championship trophy, shedding sparkle onto everyone within range.
“LET’S GO, BOLTS!” the crowd screamed.
“LET’S GO, BOLTS!” Benji screamed back, louder thaneveryone.
I was laughing, freshly covered in even more glitter, surrounded by people cheering when—
The TV zoomed in to capture three Lightning players as they slammed into each other, gloves tapping helmets and smiles parting lips.
And for a moment, my mind drifted.
Six weeks ago, three hockey players had walked through our door. The tall Swedish one, the chirpy shorter one, and—
Skyler Shaw.
They were the same three players now congratulating each other on the screen.
Skyler had looked at me like I was some kind of college football stud, like I’d won the Heisman despite my career ending before it could take off. He even knew my college jersey number and remembered games I’d played years ago. I stretched my fingers, recalling how the unfairly sexy player had shaken my hand and held on a beat too long.
It had been six weeks.
Despite his promise to return, Skyler hadn’t come back.
Of course he hadn’t—he was an NHL captain with a schedule packed tighter than an altar boy’s ass. That night had been a fluke, a weird, wonderful, singular moment.
Skyler was the most eligible bachelor in Tampa.
The most eligiblestraightbachelor.
The papers and news shows made sure everyone knew that, showing him on dates with one bombshell bunny after another. He’d fanboyed over my football days, but sadly, that was all our shared moment had been, football passion but not attraction.
I shook it off. There was no point dwelling on some silly hockey player fantasy.
I had a bar to clean.
A glitter apocalypse to recover from.
And a life I loved, right here, with these ridiculous people.
Chapter 2
Skyler
Istill wasn’t used to the private jet thing.
Every time I walked up those steps and ducked through that door, some part of my brain short-circuited. But this was my life now. Sure, I’d been in the league for a few years, and I should’ve been numb to the glitzy side of turning pro, but I couldn’t help myself. This was how we got to games—in a whole-ass private plane with leather seats and actual legroom and a flight attendant who knew my name and how I liked my coffee.
The first time I’d stepped onto the team plane, fresh off my entry-level contract, I’d stopped in the doorway and gawked like a kid on his first visit to Disney. Murph had shoved me from behind and told me to “move my ass before he moved it for me,” which—okay, fair.
But still. A private jet. For hockey. Forme.
Sometimes I had to remind myself that this was real life and not some fever dream I’d wake up from back in Tallahassee, where I would still be working in my uncle’s bait shop while dreaming of the wider world.
“Shaw. Yo. Earth to Shaw.”
