Chapter 9
Kryptonite
Angie regarded the man in front of her with a mix of admiration, frustration, and sympathy.
All three emotions were fueled by his stubborn determination to overcome an injury that had a timeline of its own.
Admiration because she was a fan of his optimism and his grit.
Frustration because those very traits were like a steel wall and gave her whiplash every time she rammed her head against it.
And sympathy because she understood no amount of willpower would get him to his ultimate goal fast enough if the body couldn’t keep up, and oh, how she wanted him to get there in time.
She wanted it so badly she could almost reach out and squeeze it.
Professional sports was an unforgiving business, and his best shot at staying in the NHL might have already come and gone.
The thought made her heart hurt for him.
There was also that small matter of the kiss, which had her looking at him with a completely different emotion: unbridled lust. The embers that kissing him had whipped up were foreign yet so familiar.
The stirrings hadn’t been there for a long time, but the taste of him, the smell of him, the way his body had fit hers exploded from her memory locker and came roaring back at her.
Right now she needed to close the lid on that locker and concentrate on getting him out of here before she climbed him and broke every rule in the book.
But how she longed to continue what they’d started when their lips had met.
Oh, mama! He’d been good at kissing back then, but either he’d gotten impossibly better with more practice or she’d forgotten how the feel of his mouth and his hands on her could transport her to a world where nothing mattered but the press of their two bodies.
She told him none of this, nor would she—not about her wavering hopes for his recovery, nor how that kiss had rocked her and left her panting for more.
Nope, she was smarter than that. Or was she?
If she truly was smart, she would have reined in her libido and not let it walk all over common sense in the first place.
But this was Sam, the man she’d dreamed about before that fateful night and ever since. He was her kryptonite.
Wheeling her computer outside his arm’s reach, she began typing in bullet points because her mind was taxed as it was, and stringing coherent sentences together would have pushed it beyond its capacity.
So she merely listed phrases summarizing his progress.
As far as her growing concerns, though, she decided to wrestle with those later when she had more brainpower at her disposal.
His exercises done, he pulled on his boot, his eyes focused on his ankle. “So when do I come in next?”
Finally, a different topic where she could focus her attention. “I have good news for you.” She injected as much cheer as she could into her voice. “Starting next week, you’ll come in three times a week instead of every day. Unless, of course, you pull another boneheaded stunt and hurt yourself.”
He tilted his head and peered at her. “Oh.” Was that disappointment in his navy blues? If it was, it was quickly blotted out by a renewed brightness. “I mean, already? That must be good news, huh?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a tentative smile.
She didn’t want to let him down, but she didn’t want to give him false hope either. “It’s the normal course of treatment for your kind of injury.”
Pleats formed between his dark brows, and he cast his eyes to the side, but not before that look of dejection reappeared.
She withdrew her hands from the keyboard and faced him, once more shedding the professional crispness she normally held in place like a shield. “Sam, have you ever thought about what you’d be doing if you weren’t playing hockey?”
Spinning on his rear end, he let his legs dangle over the edge of the table and perched a fist on his tree-trunk thigh—one she’d been resting her hip against not too long ago.
He was all easy, confident masculinity right now, with no clue how his merely sitting there looking that way made her pulse jump.
Good thing too. “No idea. Slinging burgers at McDonald’s? ”
“Seriously.”
“I am serious,” he chuffed. “You may not remember, but I didn’t exactly kill it in school. In fact, I’m pretty sure a couple of teachers passed me just so they could get rid of me. The other classes I passed were ones where you tutored me, and those by the slimmest of margins.”
“Oh, come on, Sam. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re smart.”
“You wouldn’t know it by my grades … or some of my life choices.
” A faraway look drifted into his eyes, and his gaze shifted so that he stared at the blank wall behind her.
“Hockey is all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever done.
I never planned on anything else because I thought if I did, it would mean admitting I might not be good enough to make it.
Having a backup plan meant setting myself up for defeat.
” He turned his head toward her once more, and his eyes fastened on hers.
“If I let myself believe for even one second there was a chance I might not cut it, a small crack could form, letting doubt rush in and make it expand.” He let out a mirthless laugh and pinched his sweatpants.
“See? That’s not exactly brainiac logic, is it? ”
“I think you’re confusing intelligence with determination.
Lots of people have both, and that includes you.
” His brows pinched together, and she ran on.
“Think about it. Athletes have to have enough fire to choose to follow that path in the first place. But that’s the easy part.
They have to keep feeding that fire, despite the pain, despite the toll it takes on their lives and their bodies, despite the dozens and dozens of setbacks and the doubts that inevitably set in.
It’s brutal, and it’s grueling, yet they find a way to quiet the voices in their heads telling them to quit, that they’re not good enough.
Most humans aren’t built for that. And worse, some of those voices telling them they won’t make it belong to coaches, family members, or close friends.
Some are their own, sabotaging them. ‘What if I’m not good enough?
’ ‘What if my body won’t hold up?’ ‘What if this thing I’m pursuing will actually cause permanent damage that I’ll regret later in life?
’ And I expect that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what races through a professional athlete’s mind. ”
He looked at her as though seeing something that wasn’t there before.
“Angie, you’ve got me pegged all wrong. This isn’t an internal competition I’m having with my mind or my body.
I know what I’m capable of. I’m doing this for the paycheck.
And if I can’t get back on the ice during the playoffs, I don’t earn the big bonus. I need that bonus.”
Angie let that tumble through her mind for a moment. “Is this focus on the money because of what happened with Brianna?”
Sam jerked backward as though she had slapped him.
Oops! Bad call on my part, but maybe it’s time we finally cleared the air.
Brianna had dumped Sam when she got tired of waiting for him to make it into the NHL and get the big contract, despite the fact they’d been together for four years.
Four! That time had meant nothing to Brianna.
When she ended it, she told him he would always be second-rate, would always wallow in the minors, and her plans for her future were bigger than what he could offer her.
Angie’s former best friend had detonated the supposed love of her life’s world when they’d been twenty.
He had turned to Angie for consolation, and one thing had led to another after too many cocktails one night when he’d been in town.
Angie had been in love with Sam the entire time he’d been with Brianna.
While she had never admitted it to him in words, she had been embarrassingly eager to comfort him by pulling him into her arms …
and her bed. The next morning, while she’d still been asleep and dreaming on a cloud of bliss, he’d left without a word.
No note, no text, no phone call. Nothing.
Angie hadn’t heard from him until the morning two weeks ago when he had shown up at her workplace on crutches.
She reached for the hot-pink elephant stress ball and tossed it at him.
He caught it easily in one hand. “What’s this for?”
“It’s my way of saying maybe it’s time we get the enormous invisible elephant out in the open and let it breathe.”
“Interesting.” He began squeezing the elephant. “Talking in metaphors, Ange?”
“I’m sorry if I’m bringing up painful memories, Sam, but Brianna was wrong.
We both know that. And if this motivation for money is because of the things she said to you, then you’re wrong too.
” Angie and Brianna had been best friends since elementary school, but that relationship had ended at the same time Brianna had stomped all over Sam’s heart with a calculated coldness that had jolted Angie to the core.
Either her bestie had changed or she had finally revealed true colors that had been there all along, but that had been the end of their friendship for Angie.
Sam shook his head. “This has nothing to do with what Brianna said or did back then.”
“Are you sure about that? I seem to remember a guy who was pretty broken up, especially over her reasons, and swearing he was going to make a pile of money one day so she’d regret walking out.
” His lips thinned into a hard line, and she debated the wisdom of forcing the elephant out into the open.
Before they got down to what came after, maybe she needed to stuff that sucker back in its cage.
“I’m sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t have brought it up. ”