Page 52 of Tricky Puck

His dimple disappears “It’s that serious?” He retreats another step.

I give him my dead serious stare and nod.

He says, “If anyone’s sleeping on the couch, it’ll be me⁠—”

“Don’t be a hero, Milano. You have a game tomorrow and I don’t want to be responsible for you blowing the game just so I could take up a tiny corner of your massive bed and⁠—”

“You’re right. There’s plenty of room. We’ll both sleep in the bed. We can behave for one night.” He studies me, his eyes wandering over my face and then down my body, heating me up along the way. Shit. It takes a massive effort to stand still, but if he can behave, so can I.

He adds, “We’ll put pillows between us.”

I laugh. “Like in a fifties rom-com?” I chew my lip—mistake because he’s watching my mouth with the look of a pirate resisting his instinct to pounce. ”I’ll tell you what, we both sleep with our clothes on and you got a deal.”

He laughs and the sound does things to me. Maybe I should take some Benadryl and knock myself out for the night.

Seventeen

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Resisting Delaney last night turned out to be easy, for two reasons. First, because she downed some Benadryl and it knocked her out within twenty minutes. Second reason, and more importantly, her talk about feelings scared the shit out of me. Feelings of the romantic kind are exactly the one thing I’ve been avoiding all my life successfully—ever since second grade.

From everything I’ve seen, romantic feelings are messy and make perfectly reasonable sane people turn their lives into melodramatic shit shows. Just ask Romeo and Juliette.

Or ask my dad. Not that he’d cop to it. He loves his melodramatic shit show of a life and I don’t know how he remains the calm rock in the middle of it. Okay, so maybe living with all the female hormones going wild around me as I grew up—and seeing more than my share of heartbroken girls, having to console them, one after another every time I turned around, left a sour taste in my mouth.

Or maybe I was born reticent. A pirate who loves the chase and catching the booty.

Standing in front of my coffeemaker, the only appliance in the kitchen I know how to work properly, I take another fortifying gulp of the steamy black elixir of life, and a necessity for early morning skates.

No matter why, I’m determined to stay the course of my simple, rational life of bachelorhood and concentrate solely on my commitment to hockey. The Stanley Cup is in reach—if I can avoid the troubled waters of romantic feelings.

Not mine of course—hers.

When I check on Delaney before I leave, she’s groggy, barely awake. Today’s game being a Saturday matinee, is normally my favorite time slot for the long evening it gives us to pillage the town for all its celebratory treasures afterwards. But that’s not happening tonight.

“Hey sleepyhead, don’t forget to meet me at the friends and family lounge an hour and a half before the game. We can make the introductions then.”

“Introductions?” She looks at me, and then at my coffee, so I hand it to her. She downs the rest of it.

“You know—where we meet each other’s families and tell them how much fun we’re having together.”

“I can do that. It’s not a lie. We’ve had some fun.”

I grunt and take my go-cup back. “I set the alarm to make sure you’re not late.”

“Me? Late? That’s so cliché and so not me.” She throws a pillow at me as I’m walking away and I bite my lip trying not to laugh. And trying to tamp down on that blip of something warm and satisfying in my chest.

When I get to the arena, I find Sabien there, as always—though I’m determined to beat him in one of these days. One of the rookies, the wise guy goalie, Beau Picard is there too.

“You expecting to play today?” I say to him. We head to the dining room.

“He’s always expected to be ready,” Sabien says for him.

“That’s not why I’m here early,” he says, not elaborating. If he’s teasing, he overestimates my curiosity. It’s my policy to make rookies earn my respect and so far, Beau has only a half point in his favor for showing up early because he was in the negative column for his wiseass comments the other day doubting my skating speed.

Three hours before game time, we eat our meal of chicken, rice and something green. I usually go for the broccoli. Then we loosen up, each having our own stretching routine, before we skate around, taking it easy to warm up.

Then while the other guys are hitting the whirlpool or the massage table, I change back into my sweats to head to the friends and family lounge. It’s time for the show to convince grandma that Delaney and I are a couple. My chest tightens in anticipation of who knows what.