Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Instead of my secret boyfriend’s?”
That sounds too damn good on her lips. So I focus on the calendar in front of her and making plans for the next few days. “What about Thursday night?” she asks since that day’s blank. But she answers for me. “Oh, right. Game night in Phoenix.”
“But you can FaceTime us the night before. And see us after the game if we don’t fly in too late.”
She writes an O on that day. “So this is officially a reward planner now.”
I take the pen and add an O to every night. Then, a couple extras. “Yes, it is.”
We give her plenty over the next few nights in person, then on FaceTime the night before the game. Well, I like to stick to the calendar too.
In some ways, I’m a lucky guy. I’ve had a good career for nearly a decade, but I don’t take that luck for granted. I try to cultivate it and shape it. On Thursday morning in Phoenix, I do yoga at the hotel, order a kale smoothie, then stretch.
The better I take care of my body, the longer I can play. Hockey’s a brutal game, and my body takes a pounding every time I take the ice, but it’s still a game—and I love it as much now as I did when I was a little kid, strapping on skates in Denmark, then in Virginia where we moved when I started school.
That afternoon, we hit the opponent’s ice for warmups, and I easily blot out the jeers of the opposing team’s fans. That shit never bugs me. Never has.
Playing is a joy, and I’ll stop playing when I can’t do it or when I stop having fun, whichever comes first.
There are a few Avengers fans in the crowd, so after we stretch, I sign a couple pucks. But when the game puck drops, I’m all focus, racing across the ice, jostling against the other team. Right off the mark, I spot an opening and pass to Brady. He shoots but misses.
He mutters a curse, clearly frustrated with himself. When we reach the players’ bench for a line change, I tap my stick to his skate. The dude is hard on himself. “Keep it up. There are plenty of chances.”
“Thanks, man,” he says. We find our chance at the end of the period, and we take it, and the goal.
“You were right,” he says as we skate off.
“It’s one of my many gifts.”
“Humility isn’t one of them,” he says.
“And that’s a good thing.” Nope. I amend that. “A great thing.”
During the third period, the score is tied, and I’ve been hunting for another shot on goal all night, but I’ve found none. As the clock ticks, I race down the ice. Hayes chases the puck, but he’s crowded by two defensemen, so he slings a pass my way.
And it’s all clear. I send a breakaway shot down the ice. It sails high, past the goalie’s reach, and slams beautifully into the twine.
Adrenaline whips through me, and when I turn to the camera, it briefly occurs to me Ivy is probably watching us back at home. I flash her a smile, confident she’ll know it’s for her.
Later that night, sitting next to Hayes on the team jet, I open our group chat.
Ivy: Nice teamwork. You guys deserve a reward.
Stefan: Is that on your planner?
Ivy: It is now.
Hayes: I know what I want for my prize.
Ivy: Do tell.
Hayes: You answering the door naked.
Stefan: Such a simple man.
Hayes: Got a better idea?
Stefan: Yes, she’d look sexy in a Number 18 jersey.
Hayes: Sexier in Number 21.
Ivy: Here’s a better idea. How about Number 21 in the front and Number 18 in the back?
Cracking up, I raise my face from the phone and meet Hayes’s eyes, which spark with mischief and dirty thoughts. “She’s perfect,” I whisper in filthy approval.
“I know.”
When we see Ivy that night, she’s not naked. She’s not in a jersey either. She comes upstairs to Hayes’s penthouse wearing a T-shirt and shorts and carrying her peach-bandana-wearing pup, who side-eyes me before she remembers she likes me.
Seems Ivy had the better idea after all. She looks incredible at the door just like that, here for us.
When she comes inside, the loneliness fades a little more.
On Friday morning, I run alone across the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun rises. On the way back up the endless hill of Divisadero Street, I spot a familiar silhouette ahead of me. Ledger McBride is one of the veterans on the Sea Dogs, the other team in town, and he’s running a block ahead.
Well that’s an opportunity if I ever saw one. Finding some in the tank, I rev my engine and race up the street. As I pass our rival, I flash a sorry, sucker grin.
He rolls his eyes, but a minute later, he catches up to me at the top of the hill. “Don’t underestimate me, Christiansen.”