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“I’m going to have to wear a scarf on Sunday,” I moaned. “My dad will spot a hickey a mile away.”
“I’ll text you the name of a concealer that’s like magic,” Sheridan said. “It’ll cover it right up.”
“Thanks.”
“Coach Jolie, will you play air hockey with me?” Joey came running up to me, his eyes bright with excitement.
Thank god.
“Sure.” I got to my feet and let him take my hand. “Duty calls,” I said as he dragged me away.
It was fun to have girl talk but also a little scary because these women all knew Boone. If they told their husbands about us, word might get out and I really didn’t want him to be the focus of my father’s ire. And I had no doubt Dad would be spectacularly unhappy if he found out I was dating one of the Mavericks, even though I was happier than I’d ever been.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Boone
“You have to cycle the puck back.” Coach Gizzard pushed a button on his remote, freezing the video on the TV screen in the Chicago training room. “You see, right there. That’s a missed opportunity.”
I nodded and glanced at Nash, who was grimacing. Our five-man first line was in a pregame meeting with Coach Gizzard, reviewing film before tonight’s game. The missed opportunity Coach had just pointed out had been Nash’s, and Nash didn’t make many mistakes.
Being on the first offensive line with Wes and Nash carried a lot of pressure. They were both exceptional players. I’d worked my way up to the first line, and I often wondered how long I’d be able to sustain playing at this level. After this meeting, I had to get my hand iced because it was sore from getting boarded hard in a home game the night before last.
“Hudson consistently does this,” Coach said, now talking about one of the Chicago players so we could hopefully take advantage of his weakness in tonight’s game.
I was still listening, but my mind was wandering. To Jolie, because this was the first day since our first date that we wouldn’t get to see each other, and to Joey, for several reasons.
He’d gotten to talk to Emma on the phone yesterday, and it had been a mixed bag. He was thrilled to hear her voice, but he’d hit her hard with questions about why she couldn’t come get him. The hurt in his little voice had gotten to me; I could only imagine how hard it had been for my sister.
Fifteen days in and she was doing well, but she missed her kid. She’d stayed strong while talking to him but broke down when it was just me on the phone. I’d assured her he was in the best of hands, and then I’d had to leave again today.
Joey had begged me to stay. He had a good time over at Wes and Hadley’s, but that didn’t make me feel any better when he was crying for me not to go.
“There’s not one reason we shouldn’t dominate this game,” Gizzard said. “Dominate. Especially with Stanton on the IR.”
Mike Stanton, Chicago’s star player, was on injured reserve with a pulled groin. In the back of my mind, I was hoping to put Jarvis there with him. The more Jolie told me about how he’d treated her, the more I disliked him. If I started shit with someone for no good reason tonight, just to get them out of their zone, it would be him.
“Questions?” Coach asked.
I shook my head and looked around at the other guys, who were all silent. Coach Gizzard seemed more intense than usual today, like he wanted a win badly. It was probably because we needed a win to put us back in first place, but there was something more to it, too.
We used to joke, quietly of course, that Gizzard was pulling for Chicago when we played them since Jarvis was the son he never had. Not anymore, though.
Coach Gizzard was a great coach. He was deliberate about letting his players know we could come to him with personal issues if we needed time off, but he didn’t want us to consider him a friend. He’d given up on his hair, which was slowly disappearing, last year and started shaving his head. That was the kind of man he was—a straight shooter. He often used the lipstick and pig analogy. It took a lot to coach at this level of the game, and he never asked more of any of us than he asked of himself as far as time spent in the arena. I respected him a lot.
“Boone, can you stay behind for a minute?” he asked as he ended the meeting.
“Sure, Coach.”
“Ron, tell the second liners I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” he said to one of our assistant coaches, who nodded and closed the door behind him.
