“Crazy concept.” I tap the desk twice as I pass. “Take it easy.”
I’m halfway down the hall toward the locker room when I see them.
Grayson Reed, leaning against the wall outside the training room, arms crossed, that smug smile on his face. He’s talking to Tori—or rather, talkingather while she tries to organize equipment. His body language is all wrong. Too close. Too confident. Like he’s already decided how this is going to end.
Tori’s expression is polite but closed off. Professional. The same face she gives difficult patients, the one that saysI’m tolerating you because it’s my job.
I know that face. I used to get that face.
Now I get something different. Softer. Warmer. A look I’m trying very hard not to think about.
Grayson says something, and Tori shakes her head, stepping back to create distance. He follows. Of course he follows. Guys like Grayson don’t understand the word no—they hear it astry harder.
My hands curl into fists at my sides.
“Easy.” Banks appears next to me, gear bag over his shoulder. “You’re staring.”
“I’m not staring.”
“You’re about to bore holes through Reed’s skull with your eyes.”
I force myself to look away. To breathe. To remember that I have no claim on Tori Wells, no right to act like a jealous boyfriend when we’re not even—
What are we?
Two kisses. One night in my kitchen where she met my daughter and didn’t run screaming. A thousand moments that felt like something but might be nothing.
I don’t know what we are. But I know what we’re not: public. Official.
So I can’t do anything about Grayson Reed except watch and hate every second of it.
Practice is brutal, as usual.
Coach has us running drills until my legs burn, then run them again because Woody missed a pass and someone has to suffer. By the time we hit the locker room, I’m exhausted, but it has nothing to do with hockey.
I shower fast, wanting to get out of here before I have to make small talk with anyone. My shoulder aches—not bad, just enough to remind me it’s there—and I’m thinking about Tori. About last night. About the way she looked in my kitchen, holding a glass of wine like she belonged there, all cozy and domestic.
I’m mid-thought when I hear Grayson’s voice.
“—been working on her for weeks, man. She’s playing hard to get, but they all give in eventually.”
I freeze, shirt half-over my head.
“The PT?” someone asks. I think it’s one of the rookies. “That Tori chick?”
“Who else?” Grayson laughs. “Ten bucks says I get her number by the end of the road trip. Maybe more than her number, if you know what I mean.”
The rookie snickers. “She doesn’t seem interested, dude.”
“That’s the game. They act like they’re not interested, you push a little harder, and eventually…” He makes a sound that turns my vision red. “Trust me. I’ve got a system.”
My feet are moving before my brain catches up.
Banks intercepts me three steps from Grayson’s locker, hand clamping down on my arm hard enough to bruise.
“Don’t.”
“He’s talking about her like she’s—” I can’t even finish the sentence. Like she’s a conquest. A game. A thing to be won instead of a person who deserves respect.
