Playing for Keeps (In the Rink #4)

Chapter 1

one

Dani

I eased the bedroom door shut behind me, moving inch by inch so the latch wouldn't click.

Lily had finally fallen asleep, thumb tucked under her cheek, blanket kicked halfway off, the way she always slept after a big day. Pool noodles, new faces, more excitement than her five-year-old body knew what to do with.

I leaned against the wall in the hallway and let myself breathe.

It was the beginning of my three months in New York.

The beginning of trying to build something stable for her while I worked a travel nurse contract, and my voice was already hoarse from reading Cinderella for the eleventh night running.

Her new favorite. She asked for it like clockwork, like happily-ever-after was as simple as a glass slipper and a prince who actually stayed.

I knew better than that. I'd known better since I was twenty-three.

All I wanted was a glass of cold water and five quiet minutes before bed. Instead, I got the bass.

It hit me before I even reached the end of the hall, thumping up through the floorboards and into my bare feet. I stopped at the edge of the living room and it was like walking into a different house entirely.

Eli's place looked like an NHL locker room had exploded into a Pottery Barn catalog.

Oversized couches, a fireplace that probably cost more than my car, and right now, a half-dozen enormous men in various states of undress, laughing too loud and drinking too fast—riding the high of a Conference Final win that had them one round away from the Stanley Cup itself.

Maya was curled against Eli's side near the kitchen island, and something in my shoulders loosened just from spotting her.

Kylie sat next to her with a kombucha she'd clearly forgotten about.

Wyatt stood by the fireplace, arms crossed, wearing the exact expression of a man who loved his teammates and also wanted them all to go home.

Roz held court on the couch mid-story. Finn and Bryan were arguing about the music, the way they always did.

Amber sat cross-legged on the arm of Finn's chair, camera resting in her lap like she never quite went anywhere without it, laughing at something Roz said.

Family. Or close enough to it now.

The rest of the room I didn't know yet. A cluster of enormous men whose names I'd learn eventually, whether I wanted to or not.

And then there was the one standing on the arm of the couch like it was a balance beam. Dark blonde hair, damp at the temples. Shoulders built for exactly this kind of stupidity. The grin of a man who knew how good he looked doing something he shouldn't.

"Luke, I swear to God—" Maya had a dish towel in her fist like she might actually throw it.

Luke. The name landed a second later, the backup goalie Maya had complained about last week, after he tried to backflip off the team bus and nearly took out a side mirror.

"Relax, Cormac. I've done this a hundred times."

"You've broken your nose twice doing this."

"Different context."

He launched off the arm of the couch, and for a second it almost looked graceful, arms out, landing square on the coffee table like a gymnast sticking a routine.

The room cheered. Someone yelled his name.

I should have looked away. I didn't.

Right then, he raised his head and our eyes met. For a split second, the noise in the room dulled to nothing.

A sharp, electric spark shot through my chest and lodged low in my stomach. His eyes were a vivid, startling blue. My breath caught. Time seemed to stutter. I did not like the feeling. Not one bit.

His grin faltered.

One moment he was balanced on the coffee table. The next, his foot missed the edge by a fraction and he went down hard.

The crack of his head against the sharp corner of the stone hearth cut through the music like a gunshot.

The room went silent for one full second. Then everyone moved at once.

"Luke—"

"Oh my God?—"

"Is he?—"

I was already on my knees beside him before I'd decided to move. Somewhere behind me, I heard the quick, reflexive click of a shutter. Amber. Camera already up, some instinct in her hands moving faster than her thoughts, the way mine had. Someone reached down to haul him up by the arm.

"Don't move him." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "Luke. Can you hear me?"

He blinked up at me, glassy, blood already sliding toward his eyebrow.

"I'm good." A crooked smile, forced through it. "Barely felt that."

Of course he'd try to charm his way out of a head wound.

"You're bleeding on my rug," Eli said, dropping down on his other side.

Luke tried to sit up anyway. I put a hand flat on his chest and pushed him back down, more force than I intended.

"Towel," I said, and Maya was already pressing one into my palm. I held it firm against the gash. He hissed but didn't pull away.

I tipped his chin toward the lamp. One pupil sat a fraction wider than the other. Not dramatic. Enough that I made a mental note of it.

"What's your name?"

"Luke Bennett." A pause that went on a beat too long. "Is that a trick question?"

"What day is it?"

"Thursday." He frowned. "Isn't it?"

"It's Friday."

He huffed something like a laugh, like getting it wrong was funny instead of the second thing on my checklist.

Behind me, the party had gone quiet, everyone pressed closer in a loose ring, suddenly stone sober.

I didn't notice the second click until later—didn't know, in that moment, that Amber had lowered her camera and caught something else entirely. Not the fall. Me, kneeling over him, one hand steady on his chest, my face doing the thing it does when nothing exists except the person in front of me.

Wyatt crouched near my shoulder. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I need better light than this." I looked up at Eli and Wyatt both. "Help me get him to the bathroom."

They hooked his arms over their shoulders and hauled him up between them. He swayed once, caught the doorframe, and gave me a lopsided grin like the whole thing was a story he'd be telling by next week.

Maya, Roz, Finn, and Kylie peeled off to keep the rest of the party out of the hallway. The space went quiet. I could finally think.

"You're really pretty," Luke said, apropos of nothing, as we walked him down the hall.

"You have a concussion."

"Doesn't make it less true."

I bit down on the urge to smile. He'd probably said that same line to half the women in that living room.

The bathroom light was better, and the cut wasn't as bad as I'd feared, shallow, ragged at the edges, the kind that bled dramatically and healed clean. I cleaned it and butterflied it shut. The whole time, he watched me instead of the mirror.

His pupils were still uneven. His words had picked up a faint drag that hadn't been there five minutes ago, back when he was doing backflips for an audience. I straightened and looked at Eli and Wyatt in the doorway.

"He should go to the ER tonight. Just to be safe."

Luke's head came up too fast. "No. No hospital."

"You need a real evaluation, Luke, and I don't have equipment for that."

"I'm fine." He gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles white, and the room tilted under him for a second before he locked his knees and held still.

"Your body's telling me otherwise."

Wyatt didn't say anything right away. He just looked at Luke the way my sister used to look at me when I'd made a mess she already knew she'd have to clean up.

"No hospital," Luke said finally. "Coach can't know about this."

"Luke," Eli said quietly. But something dropped in his shoulders, and it did more work than shouting would have.

Luke's jaw worked once, twice. He dragged a hand through his hair and it came away unsteady.

"If this gets back to medical before Game One, I'm benched for evaluation. Maybe longer." He stopped, swallowed hard enough that I heard it in the small room. "I finally got a real shot this season. I'm not losing it over a silly dare."

Nobody said anything. The faucet dripped.

Ten minutes ago, he'd been the loudest person at the party. Now his pupils didn't match and his hands wouldn't sit still, and underneath all of it was something I recognized on sight. Fear wearing a smile because it didn't know how else to sit on a face.

I'd spent five years getting good at that exact same trick.

"You should've thought about that before you did something this stupid," I said, sharper than I meant it.

He pressed a palm to his chest like I'd wounded him. "Touché."

"Dani." Eli and Wyatt, at the same time.

I lifted one shoulder. "I'm just saying it like it is. If you won't take him to a hospital, then somebody with an actual license needs to be watching him."

Eli dragged a hand down his face. Nobody spoke for a second. Then he looked at me, and I knew exactly where this was going before he said a word.

"No," I said.

"I haven't asked anything yet."

"You don't have to. I can see it on your face."

Wyatt held up both hands like a referee. "Just hear him out."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one about to be saddled with a responsibility that wasn't planned for."

Eli exhaled. "You're here for three months anyway. The office next to your room has a bed in it. Luke stays there tonight, you check on him every couple of hours, and none of this reaches the team."

I thought of that pull-out bed I'd walked past on my first day here, the one we used for Lily's sleepovers. "You're serious."

"Yeah."

"Absolutely not."

Luke lifted two fingers off his own chest like he was raising his hand in class. "For the record, I've been through worse than this. I don't need a babysitter."

Idiot. Injured idiot, currently bleeding through a bandage.

"Nobody said babysitter," Eli said.

"Good. Just checking."

I crossed my arms and looked at the dark spot already soaking through his bandage. "Eli, I didn't sign up for this."

"I know."

"Do you, though?"

Wyatt's jaw ticked. "If the team finds out before Game One, they pull him. No discussion, no second chances this season."

Eli didn't wait for me to answer that. "I'm asking because I trust you with this. Nobody else in that room right now, I'd trust with this."

I looked at him and felt the argument go out of me before I'd even decided to give it up.

"Please, Dani."

I shut my eyes. Counted to three. When I opened them, all three of them were still watching me, waiting.

"Fine." The word came out before I'd fully agreed to it.

Relief washed over Eli's face.

I held up one finger. "One night. The second I don't like what I see, we're going to the ER, and I don't care if it's two in the morning or two hours before the puck drops."

"Okay," Luke said.

"And if you mess with me on this?—"

"I won't."

"I doubt that very much."

The corner of his mouth ticked up, blood and all. "Occupational hazard."

"Luke."

"Best behavior. Scout's honor." I made a noise low in my throat that wasn't quite agreement. He grinned wider, like he'd won something.

I turned back to Eli. "Happy?"

"Very."

I wasn't. Not even close. I just hoped it wouldn't come back to bite me.

Wyatt and I stayed in the bathroom a few more minutes to be sure the bleeding had actually stopped before Eli went to break up what was left of the party.

He came back with Maya, Finn, Roz, and Kylie trailing him, and the house had already gone quiet around them, doors shut, music off, the whole night deflating at once.

Maya's eyes went straight to the bandage on Luke's forehead. "Is he okay?"

"He will be if we watch him tonight."

Kylie squeezed my arm on her way past. "Thank you for jumping in like that. The rest of us just froze."

I shrugged it off, because I didn't know what else to do with it. "It's just muscle memory at this point."

"We told everyone he's crashing here so you can keep an eye on him," Eli said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nobody's saying a word to Coach."

Luke let a breath out at that, the tension leaving his shoulders in one long drop. Eli and Wyatt got him up between them again and walked him down the hall, his weight dragging on both of them, even split two ways. I trailed behind, close enough to catch him if his legs gave out.

In the spare room, they eased him back against the pillows. I checked his pupils once more under the lamp before I switched it off, then set an alarm on my phone for two hours out.

"Hey." His voice had dropped, quieter now, most of the performance drained out of it. "Thanks. For all this."

"It's my job."

"Still." His eyes were already losing the fight to stay open. "Feels like more than a job thing."

I didn't answer that. I stood in the doorway a second longer than I needed to, watching him lose the battle with his own eyelids, and told myself this ended the second his eyes matched again.

I had a bad feeling it wasn't ending anywhere close to that soon.