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That this is my ice.
That I’m not shaking in my skates.
That my neck isn’t itching from the sweat dripping down it.
Or that it is taking every ounce of my willpower not to just burst out in tears from the frustration of being under his damn gaze.
Staring into those eyes, the depths of green emeralds that are as hard as ice, has my skin breaking out in gooseflesh and my heart pounding so hard, I’m sure it’s gonna shatter through my ribs, rip through my chest and land dead on the ice. I feel completely and utterly out of place, and that’s not right. This is what I’m meant to do, this is my ice, this is going to be my team, but I can’t even look at anyone. I can feel their gazes on me, scrutinizing me, and sizing me up. I should be used to it, it happens all the time, but not when Jayden is watching.
He makes it all kinds of different.
He makes me nervous, freaks me out, and I don’t know, makes me feel little, if that makes sense? I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it. Maybe it’s because I let my walls down, because I let him get a foot in—only a foot, thank God—but still, he got more in than any other person. But then he turned it all around and threw it in my face, along with all the rejection of an army. Okay, maybe that’s a tad dramatic, but still, he hurt me.
And I don’t let people hurt me. Which says a lot about him. A lot I don’t want to admit or even recognize, but it’s right there. Like a big old “Open” sign, telling me he means more than I think. But then I decided to beat the shit out of the sign with my hockey stick. Somehow though, the dumb-ass sign is still blinking, and no matter how much I beat it or try to ignore it, it’s there. He’s there. With those sinful eyes.
As my dad talks, he listens intently, every bit the hard-core hockey player I know he is. When he does look at me—which has only been three times, not that I’m counting—he doesn’t glare. He doesn’t have any anger in his eyes, more like surprise and maybe even a little curiosity. He was shocked when my dad said I was going for captain, but he wasn’t mad. Maybe a little worried, though. Probably because he knows I can beat him.
No. That I am going to beat him.
“So yeah, I hope you guys trust me because I trust you. Until you break my trust, all of you are my boys. I will treat you as mine as long as you do what I expect of you. Step out of line, I will ruin you. It’s that simple,” Dad says with all the truth in the world.
Last year, three guys got kicked off the team for disrespecting not only me but also two other guys. They were hazing us something crazy, coming in in the middle of the night and beating us with socks full of pucks. I had two cracked ribs and still have a chipped tooth, but I wasn’t talking. Neither were the other two guys. We kept it in and dealt with it because it was supposed to happen, they explained. But when Seth, our captain and my ex, found out, he lost his ever-loving shit. That’s probably why I fell in love with him. When in the end, he hurt me more than the three idiots ever could.
So in retrospect, I’d take those socks over the heartache of Seth anytime.
Hell, I might even take them over being under Jayden’s gaze.
“But let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Instead, let’s be a family, okay?” he asks and everyone nods, almost in awe of him. Usually, it takes time for the team to trust their coach, but I can see in all of these guys’ eyes. They believe my dad, which is good, because he’s the real shit. “Good, now I need all my forwards in a line, my defensemen behind them. Goalies, Patrick and Willards, y’all are in goal. Finne, you’re on the bench for now, but don’t let that derail you, you’ll get your chance in goal.”
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nbsp; Everyone starts to stand, and I don’t miss the looks from my teammates as we section off. I do everything in my power to go nowhere near Jayden, but somehow he ends up behind me in the line with the defensemen.
“Sinclair, Moore, Blomqvist, first line with Sinclair and Kuntz.”
Jace pops his head out of the line and glances over at me, a huge grin on his face. I don’t know why he is grinning at me. He is public enemy number one’s brother. He’s as good as dead to me too, but by the way he looks, I guess he’s just realized that.
“Coach?”
My body vibrates from Jayden’s voice. It’s as low as I remember it and oh so smooth. I can still feel his large hand against my face as his thumb ran along my jaw. It may have been sixty-six days ago, but I still remember everything.
“You are gorgeous, Baylor. Don’t ever forget that.”
Yeah, right. Why the fuck would he say that if he was going to go and reject me not ten minutes later? It makes no sense. He makes no damn sense, and ugh, he makes me mad. Curling my lip, I glare as my dad looks up from his clipboard.
Looking at me twice, confused, he finally looks past me and says, “Sinclair?”
“I usually play with Paily,” he says in a very authoritative way, but my dad is already shaking his head.
“There were a few games where line changes were messed up and you were with Kuntz. It was good, really good, so trust me, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” is Jayden’s response, and I can feel his breath on my neck. It’s warm and fully lethal, or maybe it’s my imagination. I’m not sure, but I need to rein this all back in. He is my teammate; that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t even have to talk to him. Yup. Nothing, only time I need to talk is when I need the damn puck.
That’s my new plan. It’s a good one, eh?
“You won’t last here,” the guy beside me says then as Dad calls out the other lines and the assistant coach passes out different colored jerseys.
When he hands me my teal jersey before reaching behind me to hand Jayden a dark blue one, I look over at my new friend and smile. “No?”
