Page 5 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Five

Smitty

I shoved my keys into my pocket, shrugged into my jacket.

Took a breath, the atmosphere of the locker room continuing on without me, and then I left. They’d probably wonder why I bailed on food when I—as a six-foot-plus, two-hundred-twenty-pound behemoth never bailed on food.

But, hell, I already spent a lot of time feeling like an asshole.

A big, goofy, giant asshole.

Today, I’d earned those inner thoughts.

Knocking Kailey to the ground, and she despised me so much that I couldn’t even help her up, steady her, touch her. And right, she didn’t owe me anything, didn’t have to allow me to do anything for her.

But…I wanted her to.

I’d felt the pieces inside me shift when I’d first seen her, as though all the cells in my body had realigned, focused completely on her, and in my typical way, I’d assumed that I’d just need to spend some time with her, that I’d be able to win her over, and then we’d have the happily ever after that Luc and Oliver and Marcel had.

Meet woman.

Woman falls for me.

Happy ending.

Done.

Easy.

Except, I thought as I moved into the hallway, this time being careful to watch out for tiny green-eyed, brown-haired beauties, not easy.

“Yo, Smitty!”

I glanced up from the carpet—yeah, I’d been staring at it like Kailey might reappear and give me a second chance to help her up—and saw Oliver coming down the hall.

“I’m not taking care of your plant,” I said, fist-bumping Oliver’s outstretched hand. “I don’t care how busy you are now that you’re married with a kid on the way.”

“I’d never ask that,” Oliver replied dryly. “I went to the plant funeral last season, remember?”

Ah. Yes. Our annual tradition to play dirges and take the long, solemn walk to the compost bin, followed by the long, solemn walk back, avoiding Lexi’s disapproving gaze.

“Hey! It’s not my fault that there was a freak snowstorm and?—”

“You left an indoor plant outside so poor little Sally froze to death?”

Yes, I’d named my plant Sally. Yes, I’d murdered poor little Sally by leaving her out in the elements for two days— cough —weeks. But how was I supposed to know that she couldn’t survive a little cold and snow? For fuck’s sake, she was supposed to be a Maryland native and?—

“Or that Hazel told me your petunia this season was already looking droopy?”

Fuck.

How did she know?

Oh…right, she’d come over to my house with some papers she wanted me to fill out the night before. Personality test nonsense and some things for me to read.

Homework to get me mentally prepared for the season.

Yay.

I loved homework.

And yes, that was me being not-so-subtle, as usual.

School and my brain didn’t fit. I wasn’t dumb, not by any means, but I was dyslexic and that made it challenging to read for fun…

or for homework-slash-work-work personality tests that were important because they were critical to the flow of the team and because Hazel was the shit and had asked me to complete them because they were important to her.

Still, no joke, Marcel had gotten to go to a wreck room and bust shit up.

I’d gotten homework.

Probably, if I’d disclosed the fact that sometimes the letters swam on the page and or flipped themselves over or decided to look like another letter, she wouldn’t have given me the packets.

But I hadn’t told anyone that.

Hadn’t let it define my life in a long time.

Not since I’d thought that dyslexia had made me dumb. Not since everyone around me had thought the same.

Big. Oafish. Dumb.

Those three went together.

“My guess is that you either over or under-watered her,” Oliver was saying. “Are the edges of her leaves changing colors?”

I narrowed my eyes, stopped thinking about my fucked-up brain. “Why do I feel like you’re sabotaging me already?”

A wolfish smile. “Because I’m going to win this competition again?”

“Theo won last year,” I pointed out.

That smile faded. “Only because I wasn’t competing.”

I leaned back against the wall, crossed my arms. “Why do I feel like you have a big part to do with the entire organization now growing flowers?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Oliver said innocently.

Right.

He just wanted to regain possession of Mac, an adorably ugly (and very creepy) underwear-wearing, plastic teeth-sporting blue creature that he’d won in the first plant contest and had to give up to Theo since the studious forward had won last season.

I didn’t give a shit about Mac—though, if I did somehow manage to not kill the flower with my black thumb, I would be damn sure to take my bragging rights to the nth degree.

Everyone would be hearing about my victory.

But since that wouldn’t happen, I’d just do my best to draw out the planticide for as long as possible.

Poor little petunia was fucked.

“Well,” I said, “as illuminating as this conversation is, I do need to go.”

Oliver stopped, brows drawing together. “Aren’t you going to dinner with the guys?”

Right. Fuck. I probably assumed that considering that was what I always did, but I’d snuck out and I was going home to lick my wounds and…

“I’m actually a little tired.”

Hell.

Now concern registered on Oliver’s face.

Fuck. I should have known better. I was never tired. I prided myself on being an Energizer Bunny who never stopped, on the ice and in the locker room and at home and?—

It would warrant concern I didn’t want to draw if I was tired.

Fuck.

“I’m a little out of shape”—lie, I’d been working my ass off—“so I want to get to bed early.” That didn’t erase the concern. “Plus, your wife gave me homework last night.”

That set a dumb look on Oliver’s face.

Which I took full advantage of.

“I don’t want to disappoint Hazel”—that part was true—“and I’m supposed to meet her tomorrow, so I want to get it done.”

Thankfully, that worked.

The dumb expression spread into dazed and determined and lovestruck .

A pang in my gut.

Yearning to look like that kind of idiot.

“So, I’m gonna go, yeah?”

Oliver nodded, still a little distracted by thoughts of his woman, so I took advantage of that distraction, clapped my buddy on the shoulder, said my goodbyes, then got the fuck out of there before someone else could stop me.

Out of the practice facility.

Into my car.

Down the highway.

To my house.

And then I did what I always did when I felt like this.

I dropped my shit on the counter, grabbed a flashlight and a granola bar, and I walked straight out my back door.