Chapter 18
Connor
Daisy hadn’t texted. It had been over a week and, like a sap, he’d been checking his phone every five minutes. They connected during the cabin trip, but since then? Radio silence. He wished he could text her.
Getting in touch with Roxie had been a pleasant surprise.
She lived for sports, so a hockey podcast made perfect sense.
She’d always liked the sport more than she liked him.
Which was fair. Sometimes he liked hockey more than he liked himself, too.
They had one of those relationships they could slip back into, even though they didn’t keep in touch.
He didn’t begrudge her their breakup. She had used her time in college to do what college kids were supposed to do—find themselves.
And she was a beautiful person, inside and out.
Roxie was a loyal friend. And that meant not giving out her friends’ phone numbers to other people.
She also wouldn’t let him barge unannounced into a podcast episode.
That was too pushy. Daisy should chase her dream, and having a player on would boost listens.
It made sense to offer help. They were friends.
It’s something a friend would do. Heck, networking was something a colleague would do too, and if they weren’t friends, they were definitely colleagues.
Roxie had finally agreed to Hazy being on the show.
Connor hated that he understood the difference.
Of course Hazy didn’t answer his texts about how it had gone either. He kept feeding Connor BS lines about how he’d have to wait until the episode aired.
The entire team was waiting. The Connor line had forced them to listen to every episode after they had listened together.
They usually avoided consuming media about the team, even when they were playing well, but especially when they were playing poorly.
Those team Reddit threads could be downright hurtful.
Hate came with the territory, but players didn’t need to seek it out.
Roxie and Daisy’s podcast was thoughtful, though.
It was still horrible to listen to at times, but it didn’t ridicule or call for players to be sent to the minors, or have their contracts bought out.
It focused on what the players could work on without being bitchy.
Their love for the game came across loud and clear.
Connor made a mental note to get Roxie put on the media list. He’d add Daisy too if he had a way to contact her. He checked his phone one more time before tossing it into his locker and lacing his skates. He had to get his head on straight.
Hazy, always arriving last minute, rushed into the locker room and hurried to get ready. His phone dinged, and he checked it before giving Connor a devious grin and saying, “Daisy says ‘hi’.”
Jealousy was a bitch. Daisy wasn’t interested in Hazy. She thought of him as a baby. A younger brother at best. If he reacted, Hazy won. Connor grunted and yanked on his laces, refusing to engage. He calmed himself with a deep breath.
Lover, ready to go, came to stand next to Hazy. Unaware of what he’d walked into, he said, “It’s our night.”
Connor agreed until Hazy, the smug bastard, immediately pushed his buttons.
Hazy couldn’t let it be. “Daisy thinks so, too.”
“Oh yeah, she texted me good luck this morning.” Connor glared at them, and Hazy started laughing his ass off. “What?” Lover asked.
Hazy cackled. “She hasn’t texted Beanie. He’s been checking every fifteen minutes since we got home from the cabin.”
Connor threw a dirty sock at Hazy, who dodged it.
Lover grinned. “That’s not surprising.”
Connor raised an eyebrow. Lover didn’t elaborate, but it seemed like a lightbulb went off in his head.
“Oh, I forgot! I want to try something.” He rushed away from them and rustled through his bags before returning with a grocery bag.
He handed Hazy a box of Cheez-Its, and Connor a bag of circus cookies.
For himself he pulled out a box of mini Charleston Chews and tore open the bright yellow packaging.
Connor had seen players run with worse ideas. He and Hazy ripped into their own treats and started to take bites, but Lover, alarmed, shouted, “Wait!”
When they both froze with their hands halfway to their open mouths, Lover’s face turned pink. This boy blushed more than anyone Connor had ever met.
“Um, I thought we could cheers. Like a little ritual before games to remind us to work together and for each other.”
Connor grinned at the rookie and held his pink cookie up in offering. “To playing hard.” Hazy and Lover tapped their treats to his and popped them into their mouths.
During their game, both Lover and Hazy scored goals with assists from Connor.
His weeks-long point drought was over. He could hear Daisy in his head telling him to lead the boys to where he needed them to be.
Hold on to the puck for a split second longer than his instincts required.
Talk more. Tell them where you are. Communicate more than you think you need to. The advice translated well.
Their goalie gave him an extra-long hug at the end of the game, and for the first time with this line, he was a star of the game. The fans were cheering for him, recent demands for him to be traded silenced.
The best part, though, was when he checked his phone, there was a text from an unknown number. It was in a group chat with Lover and Hazy, but at least he got the number.
He opened the message to reveal a long chain of real-time game updates starting around the time of Lover’s first goal.
THAT WAS SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL
My neighbors are so mad about our screaming
What a fucking bullshit call.
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE ON FIRE
Please tell me at least one of you was a star of the game
He was so absorbed in reading the texts he didn’t see his teammates gather around him. When Hazy clapped him on the back, he looked up with a cheesy grin.
Hazy laughed. “Fuck, dude. You’re so gone.”
Connor’s face flamed.
Reese, who stood less than two feet from him and Connor hadn’t even noticed, asked, “This is the podcast girl?”
The team captain, Jamey Ellewood said, “No, this is the team-building consultant lady, right?”
Lover chimed in, “Same girl. She’s awesome.”
“You got a picture?” Connor didn’t know who had asked because he got distracted when his phone buzzed in his hand. A new message joined her game-time stream of consciousness.
Hazy answered their teammate’s question.
“No need. She’ll be at practice tomorrow.”
The next morning, they were going into the second half of back-to-back game days, so morning skate was optional.
It wasn’t open to the public, but invited people and the press were welcome.
Someone had managed to get Roxie and Daisy on that list. Connor wasn’t sure who, but he was excited to see them nonetheless.
Daisy hadn’t texted him outside of the group messages, and he didn’t cross that line either. He’d been happy to save her number. It was cheesy, and he hated himself a tiny bit for it, but he saved her contact as the daisy emoji.
The newest episode of the podcast had been posted, and the entire locker room had listened together.
Connor had wanted to take his time. Pause and analyze the responses to Roxie’s questions, maybe figure out how hard he needed to mess with Hazy.
But it was also nice to do it as a group, and afterward everyone was more excited to meet her.
He had no doubt he’d be coerced into performing the one dance he knew again, though, and he didn’t love that idea.
When Roxie brought it up, he hung his head and sighed with a smile. He flung an empty water bottle at Hazy.
“You could have denied it! Karaoke was supposed to be between us!”
The team lamented that they couldn’t do the team-building activities she’d planned instead of their own programs. Having someone like her with the team full time wasn’t a bad idea. If they had started these activities sooner, their drought might have been shorter.
By the time they were ready to skate, the anticipation was killing him.
After a week’s absence, he needed to see her again.
He was a little terrified his team would scare her off.
She told the Connors she’d been a fan for a long time.
Now, the team was also starting to become her fans.
The excitement ran both ways. That would probably be a little overwhelming.
He stepped onto the ice and forced himself to do some warm-up laps before he scanned the bleachers for her.
He didn’t have to search for long. Hazy and Lover stood in front of her, Roxie by her side.
He skated over to them and waved hello. Roxie grinned at him.
Seeing her now, he realized how much he’d missed her.
He couldn’t wait for practice to be over so he could talk to them.
Daisy looked beautiful. Her dark hair was straightened into submission, half of it twisted into a neat pile at the top of her head, a stark contrast from her normal wild curls.
She wore leggings and a Seattle Freeze sweatshirt, and Connor admired the outward appearance of Freeze attire.
He would fill her closet with it. She looked good in blue.
Reese joined their little group and waved at the women.
Daisy’s eyes got big as she waved back. The other players started to notice and joined them one by one, all waving at a mortified Daisy.
When she begged Connor with her eyes to make it stop, he skated closer to the glass and put his back to it, shooing everyone away.
When they left, he winked at her and skated away to focus on practice.
Practice dragged on for ages. The drills were easy, and the structure nonexistent with it being an optional skate. Most guys were shooting or doing their own drills. The coaches were around to chat or offer assistance, but it was laid back.