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And once those last few seconds run out, Cam skates toward me, gripping my jersey. “Showing off for your lady friend, were ya?” He throws his arm around my shoulders. “I’m telling you, O’Brien, this is our year. We’re headed for that Frozen Four. I can feel it.”
“Shoot, Hardy,” Hunter says, coming beside me. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s bad luck to say shit like that? You probably just jinxed our asses. We’ll probably lose to Maine next game. And they’ve sucked all year so far.”
“My bad, dude.” Cam shrugs. “I guess we’ll call ourselves even now.”
“Even? What in the hell did I do?” Hunter scowls.
“You tried to bag my old lady. You think I forgot that shit? I forget nothing,” Cam says, pointing to his temple.
“That was last year, you dumbass!” Hunter drones. “You gotta give it up.”
“You really do,” I say, nodding in agreement. “That ship has sailed.”
“Sailed?” Hunter frowns. “Shit, it never left the fucking dock. How could it when Hardy interrupted our date, pulling a fucking chair up like a jackass?”
“You’re lucky that’s all he did,” I point out. “Fucker could have pulled out a measuring tape and measured dicks to show Addy who had the bigger one.”
“Too bad he would have lost.” Hunter smirks. “It’s okay, Hardy. She loves you for your personality instead.”
“Yeah, whatever you say.” Cam scoffs. “Trust me, you don’t want to compare with me. Let’s just say, I’m hung.”
“All right, as entertaining is this is, shut the fuck up,” Link groans. “Y’all are giving me a migraine.”
Looking up, I catch Bria snapping pictures of me and the guys. But when she spots me, she pulls the camera from her face and looks at me.
And she gives methatlook. The one that most dudes would kill for, but not me. Because she looks at me like I’m not going to break her heart. When I know, deep down, I will.
Bria
I sit in one of the arena seats, my legs stretched out over the chair in front of me as I scroll through all of the photos I took of tonight’s game, praying they are good enough. The crowd cleared out well over an hour ago. The sound of the Zamboni is long gone, and the lights have begun to dim. And when it’s quiet like this, this is when I second-guess everything I just did tonight. The thoughts creep in, and I fear that I actually am terrible at photography.
All too often tonight, I had to remind myself that Brody wasn’t the only player on the team. There are many, many more men who make the Brooks hockey program as successful as it is. But my eyes can’t help it. They are just drawn to him. Now, I’ve been forced to sit here and delete the overabundance of photos of him from my camera. Thank God I’m nearly done.
“Working overtime already?” Brody’s voice drawls from behind me. “That’s bullshit.”
Craning my neck, I watch as he lazily steps down the stairs, heading toward me. His duffel around his shoulder and one hand stuffed in his pocket. I can tell he’s exhausted, but, damn, he looks so good.
Looking back at my camera, I exhale. “What can I say? It turns out, hockey players can be high maintenance.”
When he takes the seat next to mine, I blow out a breath.
“I think you put way too much faith in me. I’m in over my head. What if everyone thinks these pictures blow?”
“You can blow a lot of things, Wildflower. And you’re damn good at it too. But you definitely don’t blow when it comes to taking pictures. You’re incredible at that.” He nudges his shoulder against mine and smirks. “But if you want to remind me what you can blow…I’m here for it.”
I look up at the ceiling, then close my eyes. “Oh, wow, how generous of you.”
“What can I say? I’m nice like that.”
I feel his hand pat my knee before giving it a squeeze.
“You’re awesome at what you do, Bria. Stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.”
Looking at him again, I sigh. “Easy for you to say. Everyone watching you truly believes you ooze confidence on the ice. And around campus.”
“Yep. And because of that, everyone thinks I’m the man.” He nods. “If I went on that ice, acting like a puppy with my tail between my legs, I’d get laughed at. But when I puff myself up into being this fearless, intimidating dude…everyonetakes me seriously.” He stops talking, suddenly frowning. “Why did you say everyone watching truly believes that? Like it’s not real.”
“Is it real?” I whisper. “Is any of it real?”
