Chapter 5 Stealth Mode
STEALTH MODE
CORBIN
I open the door of the players’ entrance, stride down the corridor of the Golden State Foxes arena, and hope so damn hard no one will notice the frosting remnants on my shirt.
My teammates walking next to me, for instance.
Or the social media manager, Hassan, up ahead. The new photographer, Leighton, too, who’s there snapping pics as we head to the locker room.
I don’t do anything to draw attention to the evidence of a hot kiss—on my fucking shirt. Especially since that kiss is the only thing on my mind. But with my jacket buttoned—something I rarely do—I can mostly hide the stain.
As I near Hassan and Leighton, I don’t smile for the camera.
Don’t want fans, the media, or other teams to think I’m soft, or that we are.
I’ve told Riggs and Miller as much too—it’s best if we look like stone.
We’ve got enough to deal with, given how our team collapsed at the end of last season.
The last thing we need is to look like we’re having too much fun at work.
With my poker face on, I turn the corner to the locker room, ready to get out of this shirt ASAP.
It’s not like I have lipstick marks on my collar, but my teammates saw me slip into the tent.
They knew Mabel was there for a contest, and for all I know, they might have seen me go into the trailer with her.
I don’t need them sniffing around, wondering what went down in those fifteen minutes.
Especially if Theo’s here. It’s a game night, so he’ll be in the arena, but he usually watches from the executive suite.
Good, because I’d like to avoid him while his sister’s lodged front and center in my mind.
While I can still taste her kiss on my lips.
On the walk to the arena with Riggs and Miller, I kept the conversation about collecting on the bet—Riggs did not get a second with Sapphire, the Romance Beach hostess. I near my stall, feeling like I escaped scrutiny when Miller slaps me on the arm.
“Dude, do you need a bib?”
I groan privately.
Snorting, Riggs shoots me a sideways glance. “Seriously, Knight. Eating is hard. We can give you some tips.”
Lake, the right winger, looks up from his stall, where he’s lined up his equipment in the order he’ll put it on. It’s a new arrangement from last season. If anyone ever tells you goalies are the most superstitious, I have a winger to show you.
He nods at my shirt. “That looks good. Did you bring any cupcakes for the rest of us?”
So much for stealth mode.
“Could be your new pre-game ritual, Axman,” Miller tells him. We like Lake’s nickname better than his last name, Axelrod. “A cupcake before every game.”
“Hmm. Not a bad idea. But would that work on my meal plan?” Lake tosses back, which starts a debate about pre-game snacks.
I’m grateful for the distraction. I just hope Miller’s legendary goalie focus stays squarely on Lake while I chuck the evidence in my stall.
As I shed my suit, my mind drifts back to the trailer, to Mabel’s soft, hungry mouth, to the sweet scent of her neck, to her eager body pressed up against mine.
And I cannot get lost in the tempting memory. I shove away the thoughts, imagining—I don’t know—the dirty laundry bin as I pull on my compression shorts.
That’s better.
I grab my shin guards next. It’s earlyish, so it’s just the four of us getting ready for now.
Miller glances around the mostly empty locker room, then clears his throat, locking eyes with me as he hangs up his dress shirt neatly.
“Seriously. Did you roll around in some cupcakes when you disappeared?”
“Speaking of, where the hell did you go?” Riggs seconds, like they’re discussing missing minutes of video footage from a robbery.
“Wait. Did you assholes do something fun and not invite me?” Lake asks with a frown. “You always fucking do that with your single dads club.”
I roll my eyes at the glowering winger, who’s never stopped giving us shit since he learned a bunch of the guys—some dads, some not—from both the Foxes and the Sea Dogs play bocce ball and cornhole together in Cozy Valley whenever we can.
“One, we don’t have a club. And two, you don’t want to be invited.
To anything. That’s literally your thing—not going. ”
Lake mimes slamming his hand on a buzzer. “Wrong. I want to be invited so I can turn it down.”
“Congratulations. You’ve truly perfected the art of avoiding socialization,” I say, sitting down in the chair in front of my stall and tugging on my shin guards.
“So Clem always says,” Lake grumbles, referencing his sister.
Miller chuckles as he grabs some gear from his stall. “You make Axman sound as antisocial as a cat.”
“Actually, did you know one of the least social animals is the snow leopard?” Riggs tells us. “They live and hunt alone. Tigers too. They only socialize to mate.” Riggs is intensely serious as he tapes up his stick. He’s never met a trivia game he didn’t want to win.
Lake wiggles an eyebrow. “Sounds about right. I’m like a tiger.”
“Sure,” I put in. “If you’re counting your hand as a mate.”
“And we’re not counting it, so you’re very, very wrong,” Lake says, lasering a stare my way. “And you should invite me to your club. I’m a cat dad.”
“It’s not a club,” Riggs points out, because…facts matter.
“So you can turn us down and spend the night at your ranch?” I ask Lake as I pull on my socks.
“It’s a nice ranch,” Lake adds. “And maybe I’ll say yes this time.”
“You won’t, Axman,” Miller replies. “You’ll be too busy feeding apples to Ranger or Nutmeg or whatever you’ve named them.”
“Aww, you know my horses’ names. That’s sweet.”
“Because I fucking care,” Miller says, stabbing his chest.
“And so do I,” Lake adds, then lifts his stick and pokes my thigh with it. “Shirt. Frosting. What’s the fucking story, Knight? Asking because I care.”
And we’re back to this. I decide to throw them a bone and hope they give up the scent. “Mabel was at the Webflix launch. Theo’s sister. She needed some help with a cake that fell, so I gave her a hand and—”
“Looks like you were a lot of help, man. Getting it on your fucking shirt.” Riggs cackles.
Miller snorts. “Can you help pick up my stick? Try not to trip on it as you grab it.”
“I need help tying my skates,” Riggs goads. “Don’t tie them around your wrist though.”
“Pretty sure you needed help at the event earlier today,” I say. “Next time, ask your teammates to open a path for you.”
“Fuck off,” Riggs replies.
“Now, this I want to hear,” Lake says.
As Riggs details his failed efforts to meet Sapphire, I turn around and put on the rest of my equipment, grateful the guys have moved on, but I’m hung up on something else.
The spark I felt once again with Mabel, along with the annoyingly persistent thought that maybe I should…ask Mabel out on a date.
It’s like a buzzing fly I can’t swat away. The idea feels a little crazy, No, a lot. But I can’t shake it, not during stretches, not during warm-ups, and not during our pre-game meeting. Not even when I hit the ice as the announcer booms: “And now, it’s time for your Golden State Foxes.”
The crowd cheers.
And…jeers.
But that’s when I finally put her out of my mind. We’ve got loyal fans, but also angry fans who aren’t afraid to let us know we need to do better than we did last year.
And they’re right—we do.
The last thing I need this season is a distraction.
And definitely not one as big as trying to figure out how the hell to date my longtime friend’s frustratingly beautiful and endearingly chaotic little sister.
Which means I also need to stop thinking about pushing her up against the door in a celebrity chef’s trailer.
Five minutes later, I’m racing down the ice. I flick the puck over to Lake when a Las Vegas Saber defender barrels toward me. Lake snags it, flies toward the net, then feeds it to one of our D-men, who ferries it around the net, and back to me.
I’ve got a clean shot on goal, and the Saber goalie’s been protecting the left side of the net more, so I shoot it to the right.
But he lunges for it, saving it with just enough time.
“Fuck me,” I mutter.
A perfect shot, and it’s still not enough.
The game goes on like that, with too many shots on goal and not enough to show for it.
At the end, the Sabers beat us in our barn, and I trudge off the ice, annoyed that we’re playing like we were at the end of last season.
In the locker room, I try to put it behind me. “It’s one game,” I say to the guys. “We’ll get the next one.”
“We fucking will,” Miller seconds as he lumbers across the room in his leg pads.
Lake glowers as he starts taking off his gear in the exact same order he put it on. “Maybe we do need lucky cupcakes.”
“No, just need to capitalize on scoring opportunities,” I say, stating the painfully obvious.
As I toss my jersey into the laundry bin, I noodle on that word—opportunity. Is that what today was with Mabel? An opportunity to do something different than I did when I met her seven years ago? It was the wrong time then, for a lot of reasons. Should I go for it now?
As I shower, I weigh that word more, and the costs that come with it. While I don’t need Theo’s permission to ask out his sister—she’s a grown woman with agency and all—maybe I’ll talk to him, let him know I’d like to explore something with his sister. Give him a courtesy heads-up.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I can figure this out. It’s what I do—handle shit. As I get dressed, I avoid the frosting-covered shirt, stuffing it into a duffel and instead grabbing a T-shirt with my alma mater’s name on it from my stall, then putting on my suit jacket.
“Dude, my eyes hurt, and it’s not from the color, man,” Miller says, shielding his face from my mismatched outfit.
“Not sure I can be seen with you. It’d hurt my rep as a stylish motherfucker.” Riggs scowls as he runs a hand down the plaid pattern of his suit jacket. Maybe it is fashionable. Who even knows? “But seriously, you can’t pair suit pants and a T-shirt with words.”
I lift my chin. “Ask me if I care.” I do care a little, but not enough to do anything about it.
Shouldering the duffel with the evidence, I leave the locker room. I’m headed down the hall to the players’ lot when a sharply dressed Theo rounds the corner toward me, head bent over his phone. “Asshole,” he grumbles at the screen.
That’s not good. For a moment, I wonder if it’s about…me. About this afternoon. How would he know though?
He spots me when he looks up from his phone and stops, his dark eyes full of fire. “Knight, my man. Have I told you how much I hate Dax Strong?”
Why does that name sound so familiar? “Don’t think you have.”
“I hate my sister’s ex more than I hate losing.”
Oh right. That’s who Dax is. Mister Romance Beach. I swallow roughly but keep my poker face as Theo keeps going.
“I swear if I ever see him, I will slice him to pieces with my rhetoric.”
“And your rhetoric has claws,” I say, grateful it’s not aimed at me. But why would it be? I have to keep reminding myself of that.
“Damn straight.” His phone rings, and he glances at it. “Gotta take this,” he says, continuing down the hall.
I make for the exit and push open the door, the night air like a smack of reality.
What was I thinking? Theo’s the most protective guy I know, and he’s made a sport of hating his sister’s exes. I do not need to get on the bad side of the acting GM.
Not to mention, my team’s not playing the way we should. I’m the last person who needs a distraction right now.
As I slide behind the wheel of my car, a message from my daughter pops up on my phone.
World’s Best Daughter: Next time, Dad! But tomorrow we can at least make brown butter chocolate chip pumpkin blondies with nuts.
Next time.
The words echo in my mind. Next time, next game, next chance to win.
I can’t afford something messy like dating my best friend’s sister right now, or even entertaining thoughts of it.
But I need to do the right thing and let her know.
Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.