Chapter 25
Cole
“Nice picture, Cole. Real sexy.”
Miller shoves his phone in my face.
I glance at the screen. My photo from the sponsor campaign. Grinning like an idiot because Cassie made me smile, and the photographer got lucky capturing it. Not that my teammates need to know why exactly I was smiling.
The team is in Nashville for a road game, and a group of us are all hanging out at the hotel in the luxurious private lounge for a while. Cassie is perched on a couch in the corner, her laptop balanced on her knees and an adorable little frown of concentration on her face.
Apparently Rick sent her some contract work to unfuck, to which her face had lit up like a Christmas tree—which, weird as hell, but admittedly kind of endearing—and she’s had her head in her laptop ever since.
I guess babysitting an NHL player isn’t exactly thrilling work compared to figuring out some rookie’s performance bonus structure.
“What do you think, Cassie?” Miller asks. “Cole cleans up real nice, huh?”
“I’m not here, Miller,” Cassie says, not looking up from her laptop.
Miller gives her a dopey look. “Uh, yeah. You are.”
Landon sighs. “She means she’s working, so pretend she’s not here, genius.”
Cassie smiles and gives a quick thumbs-up to the pair of them without tearing her eyes from her screen.
“I’m just saying,” Miller continues undeterred, “you’re a handsome fella, Cole.
Yet you’re denying the ladies all of that good stuff because you’re obsessed with being a lone wolf.
How about you come out with me tonight and we can find a hottie for you to have some classic one-night, no strings attached fun with? ”
“I’m good, Miller. I’ll leave the women of Nashville to you.”
“What did the women of Nashville do to deserve that?” Landon quips.
I very purposefully don’t look up at Cassie to see if she’s reacting to this conversation, to see if her eyes have left her screen.
I admit it. I’ve been thinking about the night of the sponsor gala a lot since then.
In the shower.
In bed at night.
With my hand wrapped around my hard cock.
Cassie used to have a crush on me.
A crush.
It’s fucking idiotic that I can’t stop thinking about it. Because it wasn’t really me she liked. She had a crush on the idea of me: the hotshot rookie goalie who she watched on TV. That young guy shared my name, face, and stat line, but she didn’t really know me.
But it’s hard to remember that. Especially when she was standing in front of me with those big, sparkling blue eyes, telling me I was her favorite player.
I keep thinking that if she had a crush on me way back then… maybe she could have one on me again. Present tense.
But it’s a thought I keep shutting down.
Yes, there’s a hot, tempting tension building up between us.
But there’s no way she’d throw away the bright start to her career on the chance to date some hockey player she used to like.
I still feel bad for what she revealed about my thoughtless words to her five years ago.
I’m certain the kiss we shared on New Year’s Eve is as far as it’ll ever go.
Except in my head.
In my head, we go to all sorts of places.
I’m pretty determined to spend the off day in Nashville doing a good gym session, watching whatever black and white movie is showing on the hotel’s cable, and falling asleep by 10 p.m. Plus, avoiding Miller, who always tries to get the whole team to hit up whatever local bar he’s heard is ‘lit’.
No part of this plan for the day involves Cassie knocking on my door bright and early, shoving a coffee into my hand, and smiling like it’s one of our birthdays.
“Morning!” she chirps. “Are you free?”
My eyes drop to the yoga mat she’s clutching under one arm. “No. There’s no way in hell I’m doing yoga with you.” I fold my arms, like a shield against the power of her presence.
The shield is ineffective.
She smiles, white teeth, warm as the sun.
That’s how I find myself in the hotel’s gym, scowling at a yoga mat as I unfurl it onto the ground, listening to the humming meditation music coming out of the gym’s speakers.
Cassie is extremely hard to say no to. And I frankly love saying no to people. I’m what you might call the opposite of a people-pleaser.
I don’t know what kind of man could say no to Cassie’s smile, but he sure as hell isn’t me.
“Don’t you love the morning?” She stares out at the crisp blue winter sky through the gym’s giant windows before turning lightly on her toes to face me. “Seeing the sunrise. Having all the possibilities of the day ahead of you.”
I grumble under my breath. “Sure. I can’t sleep past 6 a.m. because of years of conditioning. But it’s great.”
She rolls her eyes with a smile at my complaining and joins me on the mat next to me. “Have you done much yoga before?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been too busy getting hit with a puck for the past twelve years.”
“Oh, Cole, you’re going to love it. We can start with a basic flow routine.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Cassie is already shimmying off her hoodie to reveal a lilac crop top, matching her yoga pants, and stretching her arms up to the sky.
I swallow, throat tightening.
I instantly can’t decide if it’s more conspicuous to look away or not look away.
Her ponytail seems extra shiny today, bouncing as she turns her head.
The fabric clings to her body, and Christ, her ass looks amazing in those pants.
An ache runs through my groin as she sinks down into a plank, then a dog, or a cow, or a fucking giraffe, or whatever the fuck it’s called.
She’s saying the names of the moves, instructing me to follow along, but my brain isn’t exactly working properly as I watch her back arch.
“Cole,” she says.
I blink hard, narrowing my eyes. Like I wasn’t just thinking about pushing her down onto the mat and telling her to spread her legs a little wider like a good girl.
“Got it,” I grit out, forcing myself to concentrate. “Dog.”
“Cat,” she corrects, a smile playing on her lips.
I spend the next twenty minutes following Cassie’s directions: the poses, the counting of breaths.
I stretch regularly. In fact, I’m pretty damn flexible from years of work by the best personal trainers and coaches the Nor’easters can afford.
Being a goalie is tough on the body, and staying limber is essential.
But I always drown out my thoughts while I’m doing them with music or podcasts or a team trainer barking instructions at me.
I’ve laid out my life so I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts.
This is less familiar to me. The flow from position to position. The focus on breathing. The way it’s about the mind as much as the body.
At first, it’s fucking difficult. It’s weird: the more I try to clear my mind, the more bullshit keeps popping up. Shit that I thought was thoroughly buried.
“What could be better than this?” Cassie says blissfully, sinking into something she announces as a cobra pose. “Music. Mindfulness. Movement—”
“Murder,” I interject. “That’s what this feels like, 007. Like you’re trying to kill me with exposure to my own thoughts. And calling this music is a stretch. It sounds like a dying whale.”
“How about you try concentrating instead of doing your grumpy roast routine?” She neatly hops to her feet. “Try this.”
She lightly leans toward me, adjusting my pose slightly. An ache of desire hits me. Jesus, Taylor, do not get hard from your agent-slash-babysitter touching you right now.
“Are you a sports agent or a yoga instructor?” I say through gritted teeth as I try to hold the pose.
She laughs, a twinkling sound. “My thoughts can be too big for my head sometimes. It helps me calm down and control them.”
I mull this over, trying to let the breath come. In and out.
“What do I do when—when I can’t stop thinking about shit?”
“Let the thoughts drift on by,” she says, as if it’s simple.
I shift so I’m sitting up on the mat next to her. I shake my head. “When I try that, it’s like my brain is trying to throw stuff at me. Stuff to hurt me.”
“Try telling your mind thank you. Remember, it’s just a thought you’re having. A thought that doesn’t have to control how you act on it.”
“Tell it thank you? That’s—I’m not talking to myself.”
“Try it,” she orders sweetly.
So… I breathe out. Focus on nothing. Try to clear my head.
A stream of thoughts rush in. This is stupid. You’re an idiot for lusting after your agent’s employee. You’re never going to win a championship. You should’ve been there for your family. For Jess.
My jaw clenches. I fight the urge to blink my eyes open and give up on this whole thing.
Instead, I breathe out, and in, and out again.
Thanks. But fuck it, I’m letting those thoughts go.
And after a few seconds…
It’s gone. I keep breathing. In. Out. I’m left with a feeling of empty, lucid peace.
I slowly open my eyes, finding Cassie’s face. “That was… helpful. Damn. It actually worked for a second there.”
She smiles. “Maybe try it when things get overwhelming. Who knows? I’m no hockey coach. But maybe it’ll be useful.”
I stare at Cassie. I’m hit with the stupid feeling that all the warmth in the world comes from her, from that smile.
But then my phone starts ringing next to me. I feel a nervous flip in my stomach. I glance at it and see Jess’s name.
“Sorry, I’ve just gotta take this.”
I walk off to the side of the gym. “Hey, Jess,” I answer.
“Hey, Cole!” Jess’s voice is warm and bright. Relief floods me. “Just saying hi. How’s Nashville?”
It hits me then, how I’m still always waiting to hear the worst. How I’m still carrying the weight of guilt and pain.
A tight, constricting feeling grows around my chest. All the peace is suddenly replaced.
I catch Cassie’s eye across the gym. I know I’m holding back this part of myself from her. But her glittering blue eyes seem to see right through me.
I don’t know how much longer I can hide this.