Chapter 18 #2
When he couldn’t take it anymore, he went to the locker room and changed.
Most of his team was still on the ice, but Lover and Hazy joined him in the locker room before he finished stripping out of his practice gear.
He was tempted to abandon them to find Daisy, but at the moment, she was as much theirs as she was his. So he waited for them to change.
Together they met Roxie and Daisy in the bleachers, where Roxie took meticulous notes, and Daisy watched his team show off for her.
Reese took shots and made faces at her, waggling his eyebrows when his puck invariably went into the unprotected net.
Connor flipped him off and pulled Roxie into a hug before greeting Daisy.
Daisy didn’t hesitate in greeting Lover and Hazy.
Lover gave her a one-armed squeeze, and Hazy engulfed her in an easy embrace.
But when she got to Connor, their mutual hesitation made it weird.
The nosy gazes on them didn’t help. He wanted to touch her.
Her previous touches were branded into his skin.
Her rubbing his arm in soothing strokes at the bar, his thigh pressed tight against her, her tucked into his side as she introduced her friends, the embrace after he’d danced for her. Holding hands by the campfire.
They stared at each other for too long. Long enough for Roxie to take control. “Yikes. You guys need to get your shit together.”
Hazy and Lover snickered. Connor pulled Lover’s hat down over his face. Lover laughed as he fixed the ball cap. “She’s right, though. And you guys think I’m awkward.”
Hazy agreed. “That was painful.”
“Alright, enough from the peanut gallery.” He said, then asked the women, “Do you want a tour of the facility? Could be good for the podcast.”
Roxie shook her head. “I have to go back to work. Rain check?”
Connor agreed but said to Daisy, “Sorry, Daisy, you won’t get out of it so easily. You have about twenty sweaty hockey players waiting to meet you.”
“Oh, that’s fine. My whole plan for the day is to watch practices, and then I’ll be at the game tonight.”
Anxiety washed over him at the thought of Daisy being in the crowd for this particular home game.
Connor had a rival in the NHL. A player who had plagued him since high school, each of them the star of their team.
They competed in college, and their animosity grew for reasons Connor didn’t understand.
That’s when the taunting and chirping between them started to get nasty.
But their play had always been compared, at every level.
They were drafted the same year, back-to-back in the first round.
They made their NHL debuts the same week, and they had never played a game without their arguing devolving into gloves dropping.
They faced his rival that night, and her seeing that side of him so soon gave him acid reflux.
“You will?” Hazy asked. “Where are you sitting? We can get you the best seats in the house.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I already have a top-tier ticket. Thank you, though.”
Lover seemed concerned. “You could have asked. Good tickets are expensive.”
“They are expensive,” Daisy agreed. She was acting cagey about it, but Connor wouldn’t interrogate her any more than what she was about to face.
They moved toward where the players were congregated, and Roxie broke off from the group with promises to see them again soon.
Hazy and Lover pointed out parts of the practice arena as they walked by, and soon they came to a doorway they couldn’t go back from.
“I’m so sorry about this,” Connor preemptively apologized.
Hazy smiled wickedly. “I’m not.” He led the way into the room, where the men were already getting rowdy.
She didn’t follow until Lover led her by the arm through the door. Connor brought up the rear, and as soon as they entered, the room fell silent. Every eye in the room landed on them, and Daisy stiffened. He placed a hand between her shoulder blades, hoping to relax her.
“Everyone, this is Daisy. Daisy, this is everyone.” She waved. The room cheered, and her eyes bugged out of her head.
Lover whistled to shut the team up. “Hey! She’s new. She’s your fan. You’re her fan. Don’t be weird, and go easy on her. Daisy is the best.” Then he went to sit by a group of younger guys who were watching something on an iPad.
Hazy lingered near her and Connor, unwilling to leave her alone. Reese approached first. He shook her hand. “I hear you’ve whipped our Connors into shape.”
“They just needed to spend some quality time together.”
Reese shrugged. “Maybe so. Or maybe they were missing something. A little sparkle. Whatever it was, they’ve started to find it.”
Daisy’s usual confidence was absent. She turned bashful the second she entered the room, and his teammates weren’t making it easy on her.
He would’ve liked to take his time introducing everyone.
But as soon as Lover and Hazy leaked Connor’s interest, that idea went out the window.
Any remaining hope was dashed with the release of Hazy’s podcast episode.
Toma Novikov, a player his age who the team affectionately called ‘The Russian’, introduced himself next. Connor swore he saw a flicker of panic flash in her eyes when he said, “You look familiar. Have we met?”
Daisy opened her mouth to answer when a voice that grated on his every nerve shouted from the doorway, “Daisy Ann Mayes!” Daisy cringed but pivoted to face the entrance with a sly smile.
She put her hands on her hips and gave the man a once-over. “Patrick Lee Mills.”
A puzzle piece clicked into place, and the walls Daisy had started to erode slammed back into place. Patrick dropped his gear on the floor and opened his arms. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say Daisy leaped into them.