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LANE

“ Y ou realize if Coach saw you, he’d shove that bun up your ass, right?” I say to Tuck while he hands over three dollars in exchange for a hot dog from the vendor in the arena hallway.

Tuck rolls his eyes as he slathers the hot dog with ketchup, mustard, and relish. “Hey, I ate the fuckin’ whole grain pasta, and I’m still hungry. I can’t perform on the ice with my stomach rumbling.”

Lately, Coach has been insisting that on game day, instead of having lunch before we show up at the rink, we all eat a nutritionally maxed-out meal that team staff prepares for us at the arena before we get changed.

“You could have seconds of the pasta,” I offer as an alternative solution to Tuck stuffing his face with the unhealthiest food you can imagine before we hit the ice.

“Yeah, and I could stick my dick in an electric socket.”

Tuck opens his mouth wide for the Coach-unapproved cheat meal, but he stops when his gaze catches on something down the hall.

“Damn,” he drawls. I follow his eyes and notice Olivia, Summer, and Scarlett approaching. “I’d like to put this hot dog down and eat you instead,” he says to Olivia.

Olivia rolls her eyes and gives him a light, playful kick in the shin. “Easy, tiger.”

“Hey, Lane,” Summer says to me, beaming her usual smile. “Hudson around?”

I nod backward. “Yeah, he’s in the catering room.”

“Thanks, see ya!” She skips past.

I look at Scarlett. My heart stutters when I notice that she’s wearing a Black Bears jersey.

“Like it?” Scarlett asks, no doubt noticing where my eyes are pointed. “I picked one up from the concession stand at the front of the arena. Figured I should have one now that I’m living with half the team.”

She does a goofy little twirl to show it off. My mouth slides into a grin—until I spot the name on her back as she spins.

Lawrence .

She’s wearing Sebastian’s jersey.

“You’re wearing that one ?” The question pulls from my throat tight and gravelly.

She frowns. “What’s wrong with it?”

The only name I want on your back is mine . That’s what I want to say, but the words that just left my mouth were coated with enough suspicious hostility that I don’t want to come right out and reveal how much of a caveman I’m feeling like right now.

“It’s dirty,” I fumble for a totally phony excuse. “There’s a stain.”

She looks down at it. Quirks an eyebrow suspiciously. “No, there isn’t.”

Tuck’s lifting his hand to finally take a bite of his condiment-loaded hot dog. I step to the side and jostle his arm so that the dog slips from his grip and falls right onto the front of Scarlett’s jersey, leaving a thick streak of red, yellow, and green.

“Now there is.” I’m on autopilot, incapable of stopping myself even though I’m totally aware of what a nutcase I look like right now. I grab Scarlett by the wrist. “Come on, I know where we keep a bunch of spares. I’ll get you a new one.”

With the right name this time.