Page 45 of Score Her Heart

“Yo, why isn’t your wife here?” Benny asked as I slid onto the pine next to him and grabbed a water bottle.

I shrugged. That was a good question. I hadn’t thought about asking her to come, but when I looked at the other girls smiling and cheering on their men, I felt a pang of regret. Fi always loved coming to my games when we were younger. It was nice that she always had my back. She stopped coming after I started dating Stacey in high school, though. I was going to regret that for the rest of my life.

“Why isn’t your girl here?” I countered.

He made a face, but at least it shut him up. I really didn’t understand why he was still with Stephanie. I never had any particular animosity towards her, but the woman did not like me. I think she thought Benny’s anti-marriage shit was because I was a guy who had a lot of casual sex. Nope, that was one hundred percent on him.

I cleaned my visor with a towel and watched my teammates try to start up another scoring chance. My mind should have been on the game in front of me, but it kept wandering back to Benny’s question.

Why hadn’t I asked Fi to come to the game tonight? I asked her to come to Saturday’s game, but I wasn’t sure why I didn’t ask her to come tonight.

I shook my thoughts away when the change-up came, and I was back on the ice again. I would think about all that stuff later, right now I needed to help my team win this game.

* * *

Somehow, we managed to win the game. I liked to think it was because we played our hearts out and skated our balls off, but really it was because the other team had the worst penalty kill in the league right now. The superstitious part of me was thanking the hockey gods for our good luck. I rubbed my shoulder as I put my wedding ring back on.

“You okay?” Benny asked from his spot beside me at his own cubby. He was combing back his hair, still wet from his shower, while I stripped off my gear.

I rolled my shoulder again. I had gotten boarded during the second period, and there was no fucking penalty. The refs pretended like it didn’t happen, but I felt okay. Doc Franklin even made me do a baseline test during the intermission, and then he wanted to look at me again after the game. I felt fine, but I’d never had a concussion before, so I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel if I was concussed. They wanted me to keep an eye on it, but I thought they were freaking out over nothing.

“All good,” I told him.

Benny raised a dark eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Benny, get off my dick. I passed the baseline test.”

He hummed at me.

“Boys!” G cheered. “Tonight’s win calls for a drink! No one gets out of it, except you underage rookies. You can beat it!”

I sighed. As much as I could use a drink, I really wanted to get home to Fi, but I knew that shit was important to G. It was important that there wasn’t lingering drama in the locker room and that we were a team in sync with each other. I had played on other teams where the locker room was a toxic waste dump, but so far, the Bulldogs had been a good place for me for the past three years. I was sure some of the boys’ significant others would show up, at least those that came to the games, and I itched to call Fi, but I knew she wasn’t ready for being around this part of my life. I wondered if she ever would be.

Benny nudged me. “What’s with you?”

“I miss Fi.”

He laughed. “Ask G if you can get out of it.”

I shook my head and wrapped my towel around my waist. “It’s fine. I’ll see you over there.”

He gave me a little sarcastic salute while he changed back into his suit.

“Yo man.” Hallsy slapped me on the back after I was showered and dressed to head to the bar. He fixed his tie and ran a hand across his recently shaved jaw. His girlfriend Mia wasn’t much for facial hair, and the man obliged her.

“Hey, man. What’s up?” I asked and kept stride with him as we walked outside the arena and to our respective vehicles.

He looked down at his phone and frowned. “Why do you keep retweeting stuff from this one writer? I didn’t even know you could read.”

“Har har har,” I muttered.

Hallsy’s brown eyes widened, and I realized he saw my left hand. “G wasn’t kidding. Did you get married?”

“Yup. It’s my wife, by the way.”

He looked confused. “Who is?”

I rolled my eyes. “The author I keep on retweeting. She’s my wife.”