"You missed seven shots in a row.Seven. I've seen you hit targets while half-concussed. So either you've developed a sudden vision problem, or something's in your head."
Someone, he thought.Someone is in my head. Living there rent-free, rearranging the furniture, and leaving chaos everywhere she goes.
"I'll handle it."
"You'd better. We've got Calgary in three days, and I need my captain actually present for it." Morrison leaned back in his chair. "Whether it's woman trouble, family stuff, or an existential crisis, figure it out or shelve it. We can't afford you playing like that when it counts."
Woman trouble.
If only it were that simple.
This wasn't trouble. Trouble implied a problem with a solution. What he had with Edie was something else entirely—an addiction, maybe. A disease. A fundamental rewiring of his brain chemistry that made it impossible to think about anything except the way she'd arched into him, the way her fingers hadgripped his hair, the way she'd saidshow melike she was offering him everything he'd ever wanted.
He should not want her this much.
He barely knew her. She was a free spirit, someone who lived in a camper and drifted from town to town like roots were a prison sentence. She would finish the mural and leave, and he would be left here, alone, trying to remember what his life had felt like before she'd upended it.
Wanting her was dangerous. Foolish. A violation of every principle he'd built his life around.
And yet, now I know.
Now he knew how she tasted—sweet and unforgettable. Now he knew how she felt—soft and warm and perfectly curved, fitting against him like she'd been designed for him. Now he knew how she responded—eager and bold and completely unafraid of his intensity.
That was the problem. Before, he could pretend. He could tell himself the attraction was something he could compartmentalize and ignore. But now he had proof that reality exceeded every fevered fantasy. And he couldn't unknow it.
"Tarmek."
He realized Morrison had been talking. "What?"
"I said you're done for the day. Go home. Get your head straight. Whatever it takes."
Home.Where Edie was. Where her chaos permeated every room, where her laugh echoed off his walls, and her presence had turned his carefully ordered existence into somethingunrecognizable. Going home was the opposite of getting his head straight.
But he nodded anyway. "Fine."
She was in the kitchen when he arrived. Standing at the counter in those tiny sleep shorts that he was fairly certain constituted psychological warfare, humming something off-key while she assembled what appeared to be the world's most structurally unsound sandwich. She looked up when he entered and smiled, warm and devastating.
"You're home early."
"Practice ended."
"Did it end, or were you sent home for crimes against ice hockey?"
He stopped. "How did you?—"
"Groznick texted me." She waved her phone. "Apparently you missed a bunch of shots and looked 'haunted,' his word, not mine. He wanted to make sure you hadn't developed brain damage overnight."
"Groznick should mind his own business."
"Groznick is worried about you. So is the rest of the team, from what I hear." She returned to her sandwich construction, adding layers of ingredients in combinations that defied culinary logic. "Something on your mind, Captain?"
You. You are on my mind. You have colonized my mind and evicted every other tenant.
"No."
"Liar." The word was cheerful, almost affectionate. "You're a terrible liar, you know that? Your whole stoic thing works great in interviews, but I've cracked the code. Your tells are all in your eyes."
"I don't have tells."
