Chapter 10
GARRETT
Garrett jogs down the length of the locker room, the rubber soles of his sneakers squeaking faintly on the tile. His tablet’s in one hand, a useless rectangle of glass.
Where the hell is his charger?
He checks the cubby above his stall. Nothing. Equipment bag—empty. Jacket pocket—tape, pack of gum, still no charger. He must have left it at the hotel, like a rookie.
Shit.
He mutters under his breath and shoves the tablet under his arm, scanning the room like the damn thing might sprout legs and walk back to him.
No such luck. Just the usual tape scraps under the benches, the sharp stench of sweat and gloves, and Jesse, hunched over his phone, drinking a chocolate protein shake.
Garrett’s pulse kicks harder. Not panic. Just…irritation at his situation. He said she could use the tablet, and now it’s about to die right in the middle of whatever meeting she’s stressing about.
He exhales through his nose and walks over to Jesse.
“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice low. “You got a charger?”
Jesse looks up, blinking. “Yeah, probably. Why?”
Garrett hesitates. His jaw tightens. He hates explaining things. Especially things that make him sound…involved.
“It’s not for me,” he says, aiming for casual. “It’s for that girl from marketing, Naomi. She’s stuck here. Has to take a meeting and I’m letting her use my tablet.”
Jesse’s expression lights up with interest far too quickly. “Yeah? I can bring it to her.”
Garrett doesn’t think. Just answers.
“No. I’ll do it.”
It comes out sharper than it should. A little too fast.
Jesse squints at him, clearly amused. But Garrett’s already looking away, scratching at the back of his neck, pretending to scan the counter for chargers that don’t exist.
His pulse is too high for someone who hasn’t even touched the ice. His hoodie feels too warm, too tight around the collar. He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like how his brain keeps skipping back to the look on Naomi’s face at the doors. How pale she went under her freckles.
She’d made a joke—typical—and he’d batted it down. He always does that. And now she’s pacing somewhere in the concourse, probably cursing the weather and him and the entire Whalers organization, and she needs a damn tablet and a charger.
It should be simple. Grab the thing. Bring it to her to make amends for screwing up her meeting or whatever. End of story.
So why the hell does it feel like his entire nervous system just panicked and hit every alarm at once?
He clenches his jaw and looks back at Jesse.
“Just—where is it?”
Jesse grins and points toward his gear bag. “Front pocket. Knock yourself out.”
Garrett nods once. Doesn’t thank him. He turns away before Jesse can say something else with that stupid twinkle in his eye.
He finds her exactly where he left her—curled in one of the stiff chairs in the concourse’s sitting area. Her coat is folded over the back, scarf draped on top, both dusted with melting ice crystals. She’s leaning over her phone with one knee bouncing, fingers flying over the screen.
Garrett clears his throat as he approaches, tablet and charger in hand. “Here,” he says, holding them out awkwardly.
Naomi looks up, and despite the visible tension in her shoulders, she smirks.
“Aw, look at you. Like the AHL’s grumpiest intern.”
He snorts under his breath. “Interns usually get paid. I’m doing this out of fear.”
She takes the tablet and charger, immediately plugging it in and unlocking the screen. Her movements are efficient, practiced. She’s already halfway in business mode as she slips in her headphones.
“Thank you, seriously,” she says without looking up. “You’ve earned one free eye roll the next time I insult you.”
He opens his mouth, ready with some dry comeback about how she already hands out eye rolls like Halloween candy, but the words catch somewhere behind his teeth.
Now that he’s standing still, now that the adrenaline’s dropped…he’s looking at her.
Actually looking.
That sweater she’s wearing is a goddamn test of his self-control. Soft blue cotton molded to every curve, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, revealing the soft lines of her forearms and the little divot at her wrist he has no business fixating on.
Her cheeks are still flushed from the cold. Eyes bright, full lips the color of strawberries parted in concentration.
He knows that flush is from the weather.
Knows it. But his body doesn’t give a damn about logic.
All he can think about is what she’d look like spread beneath him, that red hair fanned across his pillow while he makes her flush for entirely different reasons.
Those perky tits in his hands, his mouth.
The sounds she’d make when he—Christ. He needs to get a grip.
He drags his gaze upward, hoping for safer ground, but even her hair’s working against him.
Red curls pulled loose from whatever effort she had made this morning to look composed.
A little wild now. Damp at the ends. Unruly.
He knows she usually styles it to look sleek, polished. He likes it better like this.
Garrett swallows hard and looks away, fixing his eyes on a half-torn poster for a junior league game across the concourse, suddenly riveted by it like it's the most compelling thing in the building.
“I, uh…should go eat,” he mutters. “I’ve got to stay on my schedule.”
It’s true—he’s already an hour off, and his meal plan is a precise, joyless regimen he follows without complaint. He needs to cram in enough protein to meet his numbers, which, for a vegan athlete, means choking down a brick of tempeh and a protein shake the consistency of wet cement.
Garrett lifts a hand and mimes eating with a fork—stiff, awkward, completely unnecessary—and immediately wishes he could take it back. He never does this. Never explains himself. Never breaks routine.
But he’s just done both. He’s not ready to unpack what that means.
Naomi mouths a distracted “thank you” and throws him a thumbs-up. Then her shoulders pull back, spine straightening. Within seconds, she transforms into someone composed and unbothered, her face bathed in the glow of the Zoom call lighting up the tablet screen.
Garrett lingers a beat too long, still warm all over and increasingly annoyed by it.
He really does need to eat.
Because if he keeps standing there, he’s going to say something he shouldn’t.