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I squeezed him. “But, Mase, what if it never ends?”
“I don’t see howit can’t.”
I wanted to comfort him some more, but I’d known Mason for years, and I knew when he just needed space. I gave his arm one last squeeze then let go.
He grimaced at me then pulled out earbuds from his pocket. I copied him, and we spent the short ride to the arenathinking.
Once we got to the rink, everything was hectic. The team quickly grabbed breakfast from the kitchen staff, got changed, and went to morning skate. A couple hours later, everyone sat for a game meeting then broke apart to shower, kill time, or prepare for the game. Except for the silent exchange on the bus, I’d managed to not make eye contact with Sebastian Kingston for the whole morning, avoiding the drills I could feel burrowing into the side of my face from hisdirection.
Usually, Mason would have asked what was wrong, but he was dealing with his own things. Not that you could tell by his performance during practice. After a fast shower, Mason took off to run through his pre-game routine. Since I wasn’t scheduled to play today, I skipped my usual mediation and visualization and saw one of the team’s masseuses. For forty-five minutes, my mind was blessedly quiet as Neil worked out my knots and relieved the muscle soreness from yesterday’s game.
But the quiet didn’t last for long. I was wobbling out of the physical therapy rooms, feeling like a wet spaghetti noodle, when a streak of distinct black hair flashed in my peripherals. With the reactions that I’d honed for the past decade of my life, I pivoted around the corner before Kingston could see me. As I pressed into the wall, hoping it would swallow me and hide me from the world, any relaxation I felt disintegrated and my shoulders drew up to my ears, my back a fresh plane of tension.
I sighed and knocked the back of my head against the concrete wall. This was ridiculous. Still, I waited a full minute before peeking around the corner and leaving my hiding spot when the coastwas clear.
I needed to chill. Thankfully, I knew just where to go.
I quickly found the gym and dropped onto the mats next to a couple of my teammates, music pounding away in my ears. I went a little harder on my stretching routine than I usually would, but the deep burn helped me tune out the world.
Honestly, I should just talk to Kingston. This avoiding game was less than a day old and was already exhausting. I didn’t have the time to be playing cat and mouse with him. I already had enough to worry about without being on the lookout for him everywhere I went.
I had to end this little stand-off soon. It was going to be awkward as hell, but I didn’t have any other choice. This weirdness was my fault, so I was going to have to take my medicine, apologize, grit my teeth through his “it’s not you, it’s me” speech, then, hopefully, we could go back to being normal friends. Or as close to that as wecould get.
With a deep sigh, I leaned farther into my last stretch, the pike pulling at my hamstrings until they felt like they were going to snap. I had to wait until after the game to talk to Kingston; our team couldn’t afford to have its best left wing distracted. And I didn’t want to air out dirty laundry in Vancouver’s very echoey arena.
Tentative plan made, I popped off the mats and claimed one of the free treadmills on the other side of the gym. I set a light pace, going more for distance than time, and jogged along with the beat ofmy music.
A couple miles in, someone joined me on the treadmill to my left. I looked over to find Alex fucking Lukin besideme. Great.
He smirked at me. I tried to fight off an eye roll, but it managed to slip through when he increased his speed, his stare practically daring me to compete. He shouldn’t have done that. I was being more aggressive than usual because I was trying to work through some shit, but unlike me, Lukin had a game to play in a couple hours. He needed to take it easy, or he would wear himself out before he even put a skate on the ice.
I held steady, but Lukin kept on increasing his speed. I gave him a look but didn’t say anything; I wasn’t his mother. Once I hit the three-mile mark, I got off, and Lukin looked triumphant.
Whatever, bud.I let him think he won something and went to scrounge up some tennis balls frommy locker.
On the way there, I walked by a spread that the cooks had laid out in the dining area and made a detour. The buffet table was piled with a variety of food and snacks. I unwrapped and stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth while I contemplated which sandwich to choose. The turkey looked good, but so did the chicken and avocado. I shoved the rest of the granola bar in my mouth and chewed.Hmmm…
“Warren,” a voice said behind me, and granola lodged in my throat.Son of a bitch.
I shot around as Kingston closed the door to the room and leaned against it. Trapped.
Eyes wide and watering, I coughed around my granola bar. After a couple tries, the piece choking me worked its way out of my esophagus, but my mouth was still full, cheeks round likea hamster.
“We need to talk,” he said, his face blank.Damn this man! Show some emotion on your face!He was completely stoic. He was in “King” mode.
I chewed the dry-as-hell bar as fast as I could and tried to swallow it, but the granola was not having it.Fuck it. Time forcharades.
I held up my finger and swirled it around, trying to encompass the whole rink in my gesture, and shook my head.
“Not at work?” Kingston asked, trying to decipher my shitty mimes.
I nodded aggressively.
A sigh broke his flat face, and he walked up to me. His hand reached toward me, and I froze. Reaching around me, he grabbed a water bottle from the table and shoved it into my hands. “Soon.Tonight.”
He waited for me to nod again then left, closing the door behind him. Free from the overwhelming presence of Sebastian Kingston, I finally managed to swallow the granola and washed it down with the water. Shit, I really needed to avoid enclosed spaces with Kingston. They got me in trouble.
I grabbed a chicken and avocado sandwich, waited a minute, then got the hell outof there.
