Page 90 of Puck Love

Once I leave the ice,I’m spirited away through the back corridors of the stadium. I’ve grown pretty fond of hockey since I met Van. I haven’t missed a Crushers’ televised game since, so the fact that I’m going to miss this chance to see him play live actually hurts. But I can’t stay. Not with the cameras—not with everyone following my every move, my everyexpression.

Security leads me out to a waiting SUV. Lana and I climb inside and are driven away from the arena. When we’re on the road, Lana turns to me. “You could always watch from the box, you know? We could goback.”

I shake my head. I just want to gohome.

“Well, why don’t we go over the notes for your interview forNashvilleMornings?”

“It’s four daysaway.”

“Yes, and that gives us four days to prepare.” Lana shoots me a causticsmile.

“I just want to bealone.”

“You’re alwaysalone.”

“I wonder why,” I snap, and then feel bad because it’s so uncharacteristically likeme.

“Honey, I know you care about him,” she says, but I put my hand up to stopher.

“I don’t want to talk aboutit.”

Within twenty minutes, we’re pulling up to the front of my house. I climb out of the car, not waiting for my driver to open my door, and I don’t look back when I walk up my porch stairs and through my front door, locking it behind me. I know Lana only has my best interest at heart when it comes to my career, and I respect that, but just for one day I wish she could walk a mile in my shoes. I’m miserable without him. So how can any of this be for thebest?

I go inside and strip off my clothes, leaving the designer jeans and heels I’d worn along with my Preds jersey in a heap on the floor. I grab a tub of ice cream from the freezer and switch on my giant flat-screen in the lounge. And there he is, the handsome face of number sixty-nine, gliding across the ice toward the net. He shoots, the puck flies past the Preds goalie, and the siren sounds. Crushers fans leap to their feet as Van’s perfect face flashes up on myscreen.

I drop the spoon into my carton of ice cream, and my tears trail off my face and fall into the minty goodness with fat, heavy splats.I’m pathetic. I know it, and yet I don’t care because for the first time in two months I was in the same room as Van Ross. My eyes never once met his, but it felt as if my heart stopped beating the entiretime.