Chapter 11 – Josie
chapter
eleven
Josie
What on earth was I doing? A fucking hockey game? The guys were cool. I’d gotten to know them the other day while getting some good content for class.
They’d been so cute last night explaining the rules.
Don’t think about last night.
Everything had been great until that girl… with Marcus. Just like last time.
And of course he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. But I knew what I saw. We were definitely talking tonight.
It took me forty minutes to pick out an outfit. I left my hair down, then added the gold earrings I never wore because they felt like too much.
Then I pulled Marcus’s jersey over it all because that’s what good girlfriends did at hockey games. They showed up and sat in the section and cheered when the right number scored.
You’ll talk tonight. Right now, try to enjoy yourself.
The green top I’d chosen, the one Marcus said he liked once back in the spring, disappeared under his name and number. I felt like a cliché. God, this was so stupid.
But wasn’t this what you wanted? To be with Marcus.
It was. But I thought he’d be different.
I was on my way to meet Lena when I saw Waylon at the tunnel entrance. He was already in gear from the neck down, talking to somebody I didn’t recognize. When he glanced over, he flashed his grin, and my insides turned to goo.
“Hey, Flash.” His gaze moved over me slow enough that I felt it.
“Thor,” I greeted.
He was leaning against the wall near the concession hallway with a duffel bag at his feet that didn’t look like hockey equipment.
He was imposing as fuck. The warmth in my belly headed south.
He was looking at me the way he always looked at me, like he could read every thought I had, even the secret ones.
His eyes dropped to Marcus’s name on the jersey, and his lips pursed. His jaw tightened for a second, then relaxed.
“I brought you a survival kit.” He crouched and unzipped the duffel.
“I figured if you were more comfortable, you might start to like it. It’s unreasonably, medically cold.
My mom used to sit in the stands at my games in Bridgeport, and she had a whole system.
” He pulled out a seat cushion—thick, padded, the kind that strapped to a bleacher seat.
“Pillow. The benches are murder after the first period.”
I opened my mouth, but he wasn’t done.
Hand warmers, a full box. Then a Tigers knit hat—burnt orange and blue, the school mascot stitched on the front—and he flipped it around to show me the little pocket sewn into the lining near the ears. “Hand warmer goes in there. Keeps your head warm for hours.”
“Thor—”
He pulled out a Tigers vest. Puffy, lightweight, pockets on both sides. “Hand warmers go in the vest pockets too. They’ll last four hours at least.” And then, like he was making sure, he added a fleece blanket rolled tight from the bottom of the bag. “Just in case.”
I stared at the pile of stuff on the concrete between us. A whole system. Shit. Why were my eyes prickling with tears?
Don’t do this. Don’t make this a thing. He’s your project partner and nothing else.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I know.” He zipped the empty bag and stood. “But like I said. No big deal.”
My chest went tight. If I didn’t get away from him, I was going to cry.
When was the last time Marcus went out of his way to take care of me?
“Thank you. I’ll accept the bribery.”
I grabbed the vest and shoved a hand warmer in each pocket because if I stood there looking at him one more second, I was going to start leaking.
“Do you need me to mic you up?” I said it fast, pivoting to the project, to logistics, to anything that wasn’t whatever was happening in my chest.
He gave me the slow grin, the one that started at one corner and took its time getting to the other, and I hated it because my body reacted every single time.
“Already handled.” He grabbed the hem of his warm-up jersey and lifted it.
I didn’t know what I expected. No, that was a lie. I expected to see pads. But he wasn’t fully suited up yet.
What I saw was his stomach.
Every single abdominal muscle in sharp definition.
The V-lines at his hips disappeared into the waistband of his warm-up pants.
Skin that I’d touched yesterday—just the mic, just the cable, just professional—pulled taut over muscle that looked like it had been carved by someone who understood geometry on a spiritual level.
Or a very horny deity.
I counted them. I actually stood there and counted them. Two, four, six—was that an eight-pack? How was that fair? How was the female population of this campus supposed to function?
“See?” He tapped the transmitter clipped to the inside hem. “Ryder helped me route the cable this morning.”
“Great.” It came out an octave too high, and he knew it. “Good. That’s—the placement looks good.”
He dropped the jersey. His grin didn’t waver.
Get your head on straight, Washington. You have a boyfriend. That boyfriend is about to play a game. You are here to support that boyfriend while wearing his jersey like a normal human being who does not count other men’s abdominal muscles.
“Have a good game.” I grabbed the cushion and the blanket and the hat and walked away before my face could betray anything else.
Lena and Kimmy were in the third row, Kimmy waving both arms like I might miss a redhead in a sea of burnt orange. After quick hellos, I strapped the cushion down, dropped into the seat, tucked the blanket over my lap, and shoved the hat on over my ears. The hand warmers were already working.
I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my lips.
My fingers were warm. My ears were warm. Everything about me was warm and toasty because Waylon had made sure of it, and Waylon wasn’t my boyfriend. His teammate was.
“Where’d you get the gear?” Kimmy eyed the vest.
“Spirit store,” I said. The lie came out easily, and that scared me.
Lena looked at me but said nothing. Though, I had a feeling I’d be questioned later.
The puck dropped, and I told myself I was watching number 9. I wasn’t.
Number 17 moved differently than everyone else on the ice.
He wasn’t faster or bigger, just cleaner.
Nothing he did was wasted. He cut toward the net in the first period, and I tracked him, unable to tear my eyes off of him.
In the second period, he drove somebody into the boards so hard the glass flexed.
The sound went through the whole building, and I felt it between my hips.
I pressed my knees together.
During a stoppage, his helmet came off, and he was sweaty and flushed. His eyes scanned the crowd like he was looking for someone and pretending he wasn’t, and my whole body went tight with something I had no business feeling.
I was wearing Marcus’s jersey. But I was warm in Waylon’s vest. I was sitting on Waylon’s pillow. Waylon’s hand warmers were in my pockets, and Waylon’s hat was on my head. I was watching Waylon play hockey, and my body was doing things I had not authorized.
This is a problem.
Marcus scored in the third period on a power play, and I was on my feet with everyone else, cheering, because I knew what I was here for.
He pointed at me from the ice—this section, this row—and the girls around us melted.
Oh my God. That’s so cute. I smiled and said that’s my man while another man’s hand warmers kept my fingers from going numb.
After the game, Marcus came out of the tunnel and dropped his arm over my shoulders casually and steered me towards the parking lot before I could even say goodbye to any of the guys.
He was still buzzing, chatting animatedly about the third period, something Petrov had done, and a play Coach drew up.
I made the right sounds like I was listening.
I was still decked out in Waylon’s gear, hat and vest.
Marcus didn’t notice any of it. He didn’t ask where it came from or wonder why his girlfriend was suddenly outfitted for an arctic expedition when she’d arrived with nothing but a purse. He never noticed anything.