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“Let’s do it again!” Wy called, and with minimal whining, both groups ran the play all over again. Everyone was sloppier than I would’ve expected, and I sighed. What were we missing? It wasn’t as if we didn’t practice all the time. I slapped my hands on my thighs and scowled at the ice.
“You’re coming in too slow!” Wy called to Harvey. “Let’s do it one more time. Come on.”
“Yes, far too slow,” Miloševic said. “You can’t keep up with the speed demon’s expectations.”
There was a burst of laughter, and I grinned as Wy flushed and ran a hand down his face.
Harvey pointed at Miloševic, who laughed and punched his arm in a way that was mostly friendly but still pushed him across the ice.
“Let’s do it again!” I called. It was easy to see that if they could, everyone would use this blip in the action as an excuse to take a long break to talk and do nothing at all. “When you do it this time, no one fuck up retrieving that puck.”
Everyone groaned.
Wy gave me a thumbs-up and warmth bubbled in my chest.
The guys were deep into the play when I caught sight of someone waving at me out of the corner of my eye, and I spun toward the boards.Hoffman.My gut dropped. What the fuck was he doing here? My face heated and anger lit up my insides, quickly followed by embarrassment. It shouldn’t have mattered if Hoffman had shown up to support me for the vote or not. I should’ve been able to win on my own, but the fact remained that he hadn’t turned up when I’d needed him. I skated over to where he stood leaning against the gate in the boards that led into the lower tier of seats.
“You bailed on me,” I said quietly, coming to a stop near him on the ice. I left off the long string of curse words that got stuck in my throat.
Hoffman raised an eyebrow and grinned. He was a handsome fucker, with dark blond hair, shoulders wider and bigger than mine, and a smile that could be sweet or sarcastic—depending on what he was trying to get the people around him to do. He was good at the politics of the game, something I hadn’t come anywhere close to mastering, and he was easily able to get people to act how he wanted. Coach Hill stood a couple of rows up watching us run the play again, and he nodded with a smile. For a second, I was distracted from Hoffman, and a little bit of pride calmed me down, but then Hoffman chuckled, and I was pissed off all over again.
“Sorry. I had a meeting with my agent,” Hoffman said casually, obviously taking a lot of delight in dropping his bombshell. He waggled his eyebrows and bit his lip.
I stared at him. “Agent?”
He gave me a wide grin. “Yeah, I want to go pro, so I have to push every day. I’m in talks with a team,” he said, giving me a condescending smile. “You’re going to see me on TV next year.”
“Uh, good,” I said, swallowing hard. I should be happy for him, but fuck, I’d been so let down.
He watched everyone on the ice and chuckled in a way that made me want to reach out with my hockey stick, snag his ankles, and drop him on his ass. “Oh, this is fun. Still having the same old problems.” He shook his head, and I didn’t like the look on his face. If he’d done a better job, we wouldn’t still be working on this, so he could shut his fucking mouth.
“I expected you to show up for the vote. You never texted me back.”
He sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Look. I’m sorry.” He pinned me in place with his bright blue gaze, and I felt like shit because he looked at me as if I was fucking up left, right, and sideways, the same way Dad did. “Wanna go get drunk after practice wraps up? I’ll tell you all about the things my agent has been doing for me.” He grinned.
It would be nice to tell him to go fuck himself—he just wanted to brag—but I bit the inside of my bottom lip rather than letting my temper get the best of me.
Boss skated over and must’ve heard what Hoffman had said because he moaned like he was in the middle of sex and bounced around on his skates. “Fuck, I want to hear all about it. I’ll come with you guys!”
Hoffman glanced back out toward the ice. “My car only has two seats.”
Boss snorted. “Well, mine has four. I’ll grab some of the other guys and meet you two somewhere.” Boss gave me a frown when Hoffman didn’t acknowledge him.
Embarrassment smacked me because Boss was being nosy and seemed to be trying to tell me something with the serious look he blasted my way, but I had no idea what.
“I would love to hear about the process,” I said.
Coach Hill put his hands up to his mouth. “Okay, boys. Call it a day.”
Hoffman glanced from Coach to me. “Hurry up, huh? I’m bored.”
Well, fuck.Okay.
As much as I was mad at him, I didn’t know anyone else who had gone free agent after they were too old for the draft and actually talked to a team, so I didn’t want to miss out on this, even if he had been an asshole. I rushed back to the locker room and through a shower.
On my way out of the showers, I wrapped a towel around my waist and glanced up in time to catch Wy perusing my body with a stealthy look, then focus on my face before he gave me a sheepish grin. He grabbed my wrist, and I stopped, checking around. He dropped his hold on me.
“Want to do something afterward? I know you’re supposed to be, uh, under house arrest.” He hit me with a crooked smirk. “But I doubt your Dad will ask too many questions.”
