Page 39 of The Groupie

Zak

Practice was a bitch. I walk off the ice with my head down. My concentration sucked, and I let every guy on offense get by me right down to the fourth liners—some of them more than once.

Finn lumbers past me and taps my shin pads with his badass goalie stick—and not gently. “Where’s your head at? You made the rookie look good today. You trying to boost his morale or test my puck-stopping skills by letting every mother fucker on offense get a shot at me?”

“Sorry. Rough morning. My head’s somewhere else.” I take a deep breath because this is unacceptable. “I’ll be fine. Wait ’til tomorrow night’s game.”

He nods. “That’s good. I bet your agent will be happy.” He juts his chin in the direction of a few men in suits, and one of them is Ham Jett, my agent. Fuck. “You’re making his job tough. Isn’t he in the middle of negotiating your contract?”

“Fuck.”

“You in contract negotiations?”

I nod.

“Your rookie contract’s expiring. You should be excited. This is your chance to negotiate for big bucks.”

“More like nerve-wracking.”

Jett waves at me and points to his watch. He wants to see me later. Double fuck.

In the locker room, I undress in record time because I need to wash away the stink of this practice—and not to mention the gloom of this morning’s doctor visit—before I face Jett. My clothes shed, I wrap a towel around my waist to head to the shower, but Nowicki, still half-dressed in hockey gear sans skates, parks himself on the bench in front of me and spreads his legs blocking me.

“That was a sucky morning. Sorry I dragged you with me.”

“Not your fault. I volunteered. At least we were there for Suzie and Rylee.”

“Yeah,” Nowicki scoffs. “Like that’ll do a lot of good. Suzie texted me. She’s done a lot of online research since the doc spoke to us, and she’s freaking out because it doesn’t look good. Doesn’t look like the old lady has a long life ahead of her.”

“Thank you so much for the cheery update,” I say. “I need a shower.”

“You need a lot more than that after the practice you had. You gonna be okay, or are you freaked out, too?”

“Why would I be freaked out?” I stop in my tracks and stare him down. This rookie has a lot of balls.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hell, if you don’t know that—”

“Know what?” Finn says, walking past us in his towel. He stops and waits expectantly. Nowicki keeps his mouth shut. For once. But I don’t have anything to hide.

“About relationships,” I say. “He thinks I don’t know anything about them.”

“The female kind? If so, I’d say he’s right.”

“Fuck you.” He could be right, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Because I’m not in a relationship, and I’m not interested in a relationship. I smirk and shove Finn ahead of me in the direction of the showers.

As I let the hot water do its magic, I drain my head and meditate. It’s the best way I know to deal with stress.

Unfortunately, when I emerge from the locker room, I run into double the dose of stress in the form of two people. Jett, I expected, but I did not expect him to be standing there waiting for me and laughing with Candice-fucking-Montgomery, author of my Bachelor of the Year debacle.

Nowicki joins them, and then Finn, and I wonder if this is a party I ought to bypass, but that would be the chicken’s way out. Besides, I have business to discuss with Jett. So, I stride over to the lively group and join them.

“How’s our Bachelor of the Year doing? Any new conquests? Have you been snagged yet by some lucky young lady?”

“Hello, Candice.” That’s about all I have to say to her.