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The guy relaxes some, propping an elbow on the repurposed air hockey high-top between us. “Hell, yeah it was.” He takes a pull from his longneck and scans the crowd. Probably making a mental plan for who he’s taking home. Guaranteed it’s someone. “Surprised you got away from the press at all.”
I grunt. Fucking media. One goal and two assists, but the first thing they wanted to know was what fucking Baxter thought of my game and whether the bad blood between us was impacting the team… If it bothered me that fans weren’t embracing me, despite my play.
I’d have to care for it to bother me, and I learned long ago it pays not to.
We talk some more about the game. About a couple players we know from the other team. A call that didn’t go our way and will be fodder for debate for the rest of the season. But all the while, I’ve got my eye across the room.
On the girl with the dark ponytail, black leggings, and Chucks. With the exception of the Slayers jersey with her brother’s number on it, Natalie is looking all too much like the girl from that night in Vancouver.
I keep asking myself what it is about her that’s got me so tied up, that had me searching the crowd from the time I walked out of the tunnel tonight until the second I spotted her next to Baxter’s wife.
Like she can feel me watching, her eyes come up and meet mine. That smile I can’t get enough of falters, making me feel like a shit for ruining something so sweet. I expect her to look away, to blush maybe, or try to pretend she didn’t see me. But she doesn’t. For a quiet beat, there’s just her and me and this pull I can’t explain.
O’Brian is talking about a trip he took to South America in the off-season last year, and I keep up my side of the conversation with the requisite grunts. But what I’m really thinking about is cutting through the crowd and pulling her away to a quiet corner… just like that first night.
I want to ask her what she was doing at the Canucks game all those months ago. I want to hear what she thought of the game tonight and know if she was watching me the way I watched her. I want her to give me one of those shy smiles that does shit to my insides I don’t know how to handle. And then I want the smile that isn’t so shy at all, the one I’m half hard just thinking about.
But none of that can happen, because she’s standing next to her brother, and I’m trying to hold on to my career.
Fuck.
Rolling out my shoulder, I make a few noncommittal noises in O’Brian’s direction before scanning back to Natalie… who’s watching the motion of my arm with a look that’s suddenly way less tentative and way,wayless subtle. It’s a look that could get both of us in trouble if anyone caught it… one I shouldn’t encourage.
Buthell.
It takes everything I’ve got not to lose the scowl in lieu of a shit-eating grin, but I manage. Just like I keep my focus off her directly as I switch arms to stretch out the other shoulder. Too slowly.
Thoroughly.
* * *
Natalie
Oh.My. God. Vaughn’s rolling out his shoulder and I’m pretty sure my panties are about to combust. I can’t look away. I can’t stop the hammering in my chest or the sudden dryness in my throat. I can’t tear my eyes off of him as, bringing one hand behind his head, he talks with his teammate.
Cripes. It’s a Tumblr-worthy stance that shows off the bulging muscles of his bicep, his powerful shoulders and broad chest beneath a custom suit shirt pulled so tight nothing is left to the imagination. Slowly his other hand comes up, rubbing a firm path across his pecs.
A sigh slips past my lips.
“Nat, what are you looking at?” Greg asks, cutting into my thoughts and making me choke.
I sputter to make something up, but he’s already followed my stare.
No way. After all the games I’ve avoided and excuses I’ve made trying to protect my secret, my brother is going to bust me ogling Vaughn Vassar in this freaking bar? Only when I look back to where number forty-eight had been striking that criminally hot pose the moment before, my blood turns to ice. Vaughn’s not stretching out his shoulders or talking to Quinn anymore. He’s halfway across the bar on his way tous.
The air charges as my brother tenses at my left. At my right, Rux’s head drops forward and he lets out a low groan. “What the fuck is with this guy?”
Greg cuts me a look. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
I’m definitely worried.
What is Vaughn doing coming over here?
Rux’s big hand wraps around my elbow, gently tugging me back. Like he thinks somehow he’s going to keep me out of whatever trouble’s about to go down. I take a last look around one of my favorite bars, mentally calculating the damage about to happen. The authentic boards around the walls will be fine, but that scoreboard above the bar won’t survive whichever two hundred-pound body hits it first. And the mini jumbotron replicas hung from the high ceilings… totally within the overhead arc of a barstool. And that’s before the rest of the team joins the melee.
Goodbye, Five Hole.
Breath held, I brace for impact.
