Page 93 of The Fake Out

“No, we both knew the score. We’re done. It’s better this way.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile because we both knew I was lying.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

BLAISE

JANUARY

“AGAIN!” Coach LaVoie yelled on the other side of the ice, and we ran through skating lines again. My chest was heaving, and I felt like I was going to die. A side-glance to my defensive partner Riley told me it wasn’t just me.

It had been a couple of months since I last saw Veronica, and I was playing like garbage. I knew it was because I let myself catch feelings. I didn’t think one person could cause a whole hockey team to mess up their season, but guilt weighed me down. Hence why our practice was unusually long, and we were working our asses off trying not to piss off Coach.

We finished the set, and Coach dismissed us. “Holmstrom! A word after you hit the showers?” Coach called out to me.

I wiped the sweat off my eye-shield and nodded. Riley cringed. “Oh, what did you do?”

I sighed. “Not play good enough.”

He nodded. “You’ve got things to work on, sure, but we’ll figure it out together. We’re a team.”

“Appreciate it. Hey, how’s Fi doing?” I asked. He beamed as we got off the ice and walked back into the locker room.

I stripped off my jersey and threw it in the bin, and started taking off all my pads.

Riley pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. I squinted at the grainy sonogram. A spike of jealousy ran through me, which was weird because I wasn’t planning on having kids anytime soon.

“Dude, I’m so happy for you,” I said to Riley, which was true. I was also sad for myself. The full-on Blaise Holmstrom emotional spectrum, everybody!

He took it back and left it up in the top of his cubby.

“You’re not thinking of retiring, right?” I asked.

“Nah, dude. I'm an alternate captain while G’s injured. Someone’s gotta keep you fuckers in line!”

I laughed, then took off the rest of my equipment and hopped into the shower. I dressed quickly and knocked on Coach’s office door. He looked up from his notes. “Holmstrom, shut the door.”

That was never good.

I shut the door and took a seat in the chair across from him. “Am I getting traded?”

He laughed. “Fuck no! People like the hometown boy.”

“So what’s up?”

The older man leaned back and rubbed a hand on his jaw. “Look, I don’t like to pry into my player’s personal life, but you look like a robot out there.”

“What?” I asked in disbelief.

I thought he was going to tell me I was sluggish on the ice and needed to work on blocking shots. Not that my playing looked apathetic.

“You look like you don’t have passion for the game anymore. I’d like you to be more offensive, of course, but something else seems off.”

I rubbed a hand across my jaw. “I’ve been busy moving out of my dad’s house.”

“You in the city?”

I nodded. “Rittenhouse Square.”