CHAPTER 13
DEVON
MY BODY IS currently seventy percent water and thirty percent glitter.
It's everywhere. In my hair, on my jeans, somehow inside my shoe.
There's glitter on the poster board, on the seats, on Leila's coat, probably in my lungs at this point.
I'm going to be finding glitter for weeks.
I'm going to die and they're going to cremate me and the ashes will be forty percent glitter.
"I told you not to open it like that," Leila says, not looking up from the banner she's working on.
"You just said 'be careful with the glitter.'"
"Exactly."
"That's not instructions. That's a vague warning." I'm trying to shake glitter off my hands but it's just redistributing. Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies. "I need specifics. 'Don't shake it like a cocktail' would've been helpful."
She's laughing, which is rude, but also fair.
We're set up in the stands overlooking the practice rink, supplies spread across seven seats like we're running a kindergarten art station. Poster board, markers in every color, stickers shaped like paws, and the glitter bomb I just detonated.
Below us, the Wolves are warming up.
And by Wolves, I mean Ace, because even though the rest of the team is also there, my eyes decide they're mere background.
I'm not staring. I'm observing. Evaluating.
Because I need to understand hockey for the sake of charity, and understanding hockey requires watching Ace's thighs work as he skates.
Those thighs could crush a watermelon. Or my head.
He's wearing practice gear—fitted compression shirt under his pads, hockey pants that somehow make his ass right fucking there, and I'm supposed to be drawing a banner but instead I'm mentally undressing him.
Jesus Christ, focus.
I pick up a marker. Put it down. Pick up a different marker.
Ace does a crossover, muscles shifting under his gear, and I make an undignified noise.
Leila glances over. "You okay?"
"Yep. Great. Just very passionate about banner fonts."
She looks at my blank poster board. "Uh-huh."
On the ice, the team's moved into stretching, and—
What. The. Fuck. Is. Happening. Right. Now?
They're doing…something that involves dropping on the ice in some sort of unholy half-kneel, half-crouch, thighs spread, and I'm three seconds from passing out.
"Earth to Devon." Leila waves a hand in front of my face, but I'm only semi-aware of the fact that she's even here or that I exist.
"I can't focus when they're humping the ice!" I blurt out.
Leila chokes on her coffee. "They're what?"
"The stretches! The warm-ups! All the—" I gesture wildly at the ice. "—the bending and the flexing and the thigh things!"
She laughs. "The thigh things?"
"You know what I mean!"
"I really don't."
I turn my head to give her the you're-full-of-shit look and she breaks. "Okay, okay. I know what you mean."
I grin. "You're my people."
"So," Leila says, uncapping a marker, "how was your weekend? Mine was chaos. Hubs tried to install shelves in the garage. Emphasis on tried."
"Hm?" I'm only half-listening because Ace is now bent forward, stretching his hamstrings, and oof. "Oh. Fine. Got stood up by a blind date, but whatever."
"Oh honey. Sorry to hear that. But you know what they say. Plenty of fish in the sea."
Yeah. And I want that fish specifically.
The one currently doing crossovers at the far end of the rink, his edges so clean they could slice bread. The fish that looks like what Michelangelo had in mind when making David, but he couldn't quite capture the movement.
And I'm drooling.
I drag my eyes away from Ace—who's now doing some stretch that involves his legs spread wide and I need to be sedated—and focus on the task at hand.
That's why we're here in the first place. Multitasking. Every minute counts.
I grab a marker and start sketching a dog on the poster board. It looks like a deformed potato with legs but I'm committed now.
On the ice, Ace is skating backwards, stickhandling a puck, and the way he moves is unnaturally graceful for someone built like a tank. He makes it look effortless, powerful and controlled, and my brain is going places it absolutely should not go in public.
The arena doors bang open and a group of men file in, led by Marcus. Must be the firefighters. I recognize a few from the bar.
Coach Martin and Washington skate over to greet them, and the team gathers at center ice, still breathing hard from warm-ups.
"This should be good," Leila says, setting aside her marker.
The first firefighter steps onto the ice with the confidence of a man who's about to regret everything, takes one stride, and immediately eats shit. I’m yanking full-body, arms-flailing, spectacular wipeout that ends with him flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with the expression of someone reconsidering all his life choices.
"Maybe I'll just watch from here," one of the other firefighters says.
"Nope!" Marcus claps him on the shoulder and shoves him onto the ice. "All in, boys!"
The rest of the firefighters step onto the ice with varying degrees of caution, and it's like watching baby deer try to walk for the first time—all gangly limbs and zero coordination.
Becker skates over, demonstrating basic skating—push, glide, push, glide. He makes it look easy because he's probably been skating since before he could walk.
One firefighter mimics him.
Sort of.
He's got the pushing part down but the gliding turns into flailing, and he crashes directly into the boards with a bang that makes me flinch.
"Maybe less speed," Becker suggests.
"I wasn't trying to go fast!"
Wall takes over, showing them how to stop. He demonstrates a hockey stop—quick, controlled, ice spraying dramatically.
Another firefighter attempts it.
He does not stop.
He slides across the entire fucking rink, arms windmilling, until he crashes into the opposite boards.
"I think he's dead," I whisper to Leila.
"He's moving. That's a good sign."
Petrov decides to show off, doing a series of quick crossovers and a spin that would make a figure skater jealous.
One of the firefighters, younger guy, way too confident, says, "I can do that."
"No you can't," Marcus warns.
"Watch me."
He cannot, in fact, do that.
He makes it approximately three seconds before his skates tangle and he goes down in a spectacular wipeout that somehow takes out two other firefighters in the process. It's like watching dominoes fall, except the dominoes are full-grown men and they're all yelling.
Another firefighter is somehow skating backwards. Not on purpose, based on the panic on his face. "HELP!"
"Just turn!"
"I DON'T KNOW HOW!"
He crashes into Wall, who doesn't even budge. Wall's like a tree. An enormous, goalie-shaped tree.
The coach has his head in his hands.
Washington's trying not to laugh and failing.
They move on to puck handling, which is somehow even more disastrous.
Pucks are flying everywhere. One firefighter takes a shot and the puck goes straight up, nearly hitting the lights.
Another shoots it directly into his own goal.
A stick goes helicoptering across the ice after someone loses their grip, spinning like a deadly propeller, and the coach has to dive out of the way.
"SORRY!"
Marcus lines up for a slap shot, winds up with way too much confidence, misses the puck entirely, and spins from the momentum like a drunk figure skater.
I'm laughing so hard, I'm crying. Leila's not even pretending to work on her banner anymore. We're both just watching this trainwreck unfold.
"This is the best thing I've ever seen," I gasp out between laughs.
"They have two more weeks to learn hockey."
"We're doomed."
"So doomed."
But the team's being incredibly patient. Ace is working with one of the firefighters, demonstrating stickhandling slowly, and I watch him move the puck back and forth, his hands steady and controlled.
My brain immediately goes somewhere inappropriate.
"Devon."
I snap back to reality. "What?"
Now it's Leila who's giving me The Look. "You're staring."
"I'm learning!"
"Uh-huh."
I force myself to look at my poster board.
The potato-dog has company now—a potato-cat and what might be a potato-bird but could also be a potato-airplane. I've created a potato farm.
Petrov skates over during a break, stopping at the boards right below us. He looks up at my banner, head tilted. "This is... interesting choice."
"It's called artistic vision."
"I understand is ugly."
"Hey." I point my marker at him. "Aren't you new here?"
He grins. "You're newer."
"That's—" I stop. "Okay, fair."
He skates away, laughing.
The training session wraps up with a scrimmage that looks more like a demolition derby than hockey, and by the end, everyone looks exhausted.
Leila and I have managed to complete exactly two banners. We were supposed to make six.
"We'll finish the rest later," she says, packing up markers.
"Define 'later.'"
She shrugs. "We'll manage. Somehow."
"Or we could just make these two really big."
"That's... not how banners work."
"It could be. We're innovators."
I'm gathering the glitter—well, attempting to gather the glitter, which is impossible—when I hear skates approaching the boards.
I look up.
Ace is right there, leaning on the boards, helmet off, hair a sweaty mess, face flushed from exertion.
He's never looked hotter.
"How's it going?" he asks, slightly breathless.
My brain has left the building. "Good. Great. Banners. We're making banners. Potatoes and all."
He's looking at my potato farm. "Those are... creative."
"They're dogs."
"Ah." He nods seriously. "I see it now."
Liar.
He's smiling though, a soft smile, and he's close enough that I can see the sweat on his neck, and the way his chest is still rising and falling from the workout.
I want to lick him.
Leila's looking between us with an expression that says she knows exactly what's going on in my head, and I suddenly become very interested in organizing our markers by color.
"I should hit the showers," Ace says, pushing off the boards. "See you at the bar."
Leila's staring at me.
"What?" I ask.
She just shakes her head, smiling. "Nothing."
But the look on her face says everything.
Busted.