Page 6

Chapter 6

Zeke

I held a half empty drink in my hand, swishing the amber liquid around. The golden color was hypnotizing as I watched it go around in circles, and I wondered why I was even sitting here. If I wasn’t going to go out with the team to celebrate our win, I should have headed on up to my room to go to bed.

Back in my heyday, I had always partied with the team, especially after an away game. The win at an away game always tasted a little sweeter. Tonight’s win had been a sweet victory as well, but my days of hanging out with the team were in the past. I’d had to learn the hard way that when you got too close to your teammates it had made it that much harder when you got traded. My contract with the Wolves was only for a year—what was the point of working on team camaraderie? I’d be lucky to be on this team next season. Heck, I’d be lucky if I got on any team next season.

I lifted the glass to my lips, letting the liquid burn down my throat. If only it could burn away the loneliness that settled around me like a cloak. Knowing that more lonely days were waiting ahead of me, once I didn’t have hockey to fill my time, had me tossing back my drink until there was nothing left.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, figuring it was probably a spam call since not many people called me these days.

To my surprise, Crew’s name appeared on the screen.

I answered the call. “Crew Freaking Anderson.”

His low chuckle came through the line. “How’s The Zeke Man?”

See? People really did call me that.

“Oh, you know me,” I answered, trying to put more enthusiasm in my voice than I felt. “Just living the dream.”

“I watched your game tonight. You guys looked great,” he said. “Are you sure I’m not interrupting your celebration?”

Of course he would assume I was out with the team.

“No. I stepped away,” I lied. “You’re good.”

For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him I was sitting by myself in the hotel lobby.

“Just wanted to see how you were holding up. New season, new team.”

Crew had been calling me more recently, but I figured it was because he had more time on his hands now that he was retired. That and now that he was acting like a father figure for Addie’s son, Tyler, maybe he felt the need to watch out for me. But I didn’t need him worrying about me. I was good. Just like always.

“Doing good,” I said. “The team is great. I like the coaches. Happy to still be playing.” Short answers let me keep my real feelings hidden.

Crew and I had been best friends growing up, and he knew me better than anyone else. Which wasn’t hard when I didn’t really have anyone else in my life.

“C’mon, Zeke. I know you’re holding out on me. You sound like a robot.”

I let out a sigh and raked my fingers through my hair. So much for hiding my feelings.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” I let myself sound tired, no longer pretending. “I’m an older man trying to play a younger man’s sport. Things are different than they used to be. Back then, everything was easy. Now, nothing is.”

“I know,” he said, and he really did. “But you’re still getting lots of ice time, so that’s a good thing. But you have to realize you can’t play hockey forever.”

“I do realize it.” My frustration seeped out of me. “That’s why I’m working harder than I ever have before. To play for as long as I can.”

“And I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy it while you can, but hockey isn’t everything.”

My hand squeezed the phone, the urge to throw it across the room hard to ignore. That’s what people didn’t understand. Crew understood more than most, but he didn’t understand it all. He didn’t get it. No one did.

No one understood that hockey was all I’d ever had my entire life. Most people had family, a loving parent or two, a sibling, someone who cared about them. That wasn’t my life. It never had been. Hockey had been my family as far back as I could remember. How was I supposed to just let it go?

“Maybe what you need is a woman,” he said playfully. I assumed he’d heard the annoyance in my silence and was trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, no.” I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it. “You know I don’t do the relationship thing.”

“I know why you didn’t want to do the relationship thing for a while, but it’s been a long time since Anna.”

Yet, hearing her name still stung. I didn’t have any feelings for her anymore. Crew was right about how it had been a long time ago. But when someone leaves you, that crap sticks with you forever.

I sighed. “I know you are all twitterpated with Addie, and I’m happy for you, but love and relationships are not on my radar right now.”

“Maybe they should be.” He sounded serious this time.

“Trust me, now is not the time. Hockey needs to be my focus if I want to keep playing.” I was saying that as much for him as I was for me. I didn’t have the luxury of putting my attention anywhere else. “The only woman I have time for in my life is my physical therapist.”

He didn’t need to know my physical therapist was a young and very attractive woman whom I enjoyed spending time with. I needed to not know or recognize it either. Blurring lines with her would only make a mess of things.

Crew’s laughter had me smiling. “I don’t miss those days. My last year playing, I was with my physical therapist more than I was on the ice.”

“Sounds about right.”

We talked for a few more minutes about how coaching the Glacier Gators in our hometown was going, about how things were going between him and Addie, and about how Tyler would be going trick-or-treating on his own with his friends for the first time this year, reminding us of when the two of us would try to hit up every door in our small town.

Their wedding plans were underway, and he sounded happier than I’d ever heard him. He made it sound like he was living the dream, not me. Like even his years in the NHL couldn’t hold a candle to where his life was right now. It was hard to not envy that kind of happiness, that kind of contentment.

After we hung up, I couldn’t decide if Crew’s phone call had made me feel better or worse. Since I was debating about ordering another drink—I never ordered more than one—the call must have made it worse since my loneliness was made even more apparent. I stared at the bottom of my glass, warring back and forth about whether I should order another.

“Is this seat taken?” a woman’s voice said to my left.

Pulling my gaze from my empty glass, I turned to see Piper sliding onto the stool next to me.

One side of my mouth pulled up in a smile at just the sight of her. I’d never seen her with her hair down before, since she always had it in a high ponytail for work. Her golden-brown hair fell around her shoulders and looked silky enough that I wanted to run my fingers through it. She wore jeans and a long-sleeve black shirt that showed off her curves even more than her fitted scrubs did. If I had thought Work Piper was attractive, this Casual Night Out Piper was another level. I wasn’t sure I was a strong enough man to not flirt with her. Everything in me wanted to pull her in and see if she had as hard of a time keeping her distance from me as I did her.

But maybe that was just the loneliness talking.

I shook my head to clear it and turned my focus back to my glass. Getting involved with Piper was a bad idea on many levels.

“Nope,” I answered, hoping my answer didn’t sound too gruff.

The bartender grabbed her drink order before she turned her attention back to me. “I got to say, I’m surprised to see you here sitting alone instead of out with the team.”

The bartender set down a club soda in front of her, and I asked him to bring me the same. Better to keep my one drink rule.

“I’m just full of surprises.” I gave her a forced smile.

She looked at me quizzically, like I was a math problem that didn’t add up. “What’s up with you tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Definitely something,” she said in reply, still sizing me up. “I don’t get you. One second you’re mister fun and flirty, and then the next you’re a grump. Your back and forth is throwing me for a loop.”

Her assessment was fair. Usually I was known as the fun and flirty guy, but lately I’d definitely been more of a grump. I was trying not to let on that this trade had been the hardest one I’d had to deal with. I felt like the walls were caving in on me, my time running out, and with all the pressure, it was causing random grumpy outbursts.

“I just have a lot on my mind,” I tried to explain. I didn’t want to be a grump to her. It wasn’t her fault she was stuck with helping a man who was past his prime. “I don’t mean to be rude.”

“That’s something no one has ever called you in your career,” she commented. “You’ve always been known as the nice guy.”

I sat up straighter, a smile stretching across my face. “You follow my career?”

Her cheeks turned pink, and I realized I’d never get tired of making her blush. “As much as all the other hockey players,” she waved her hand dismissively. “My dad was really into hockey and passed the love of the game on to me.”

Something about her comments made me think she knew more about me and my hockey career than she was letting on. And the thought of that sent a thrill through me.

“What team?” I asked, curious to know what team she and her dad had cheered for over the years.

“The Minnesota Wolves, actually.” She took a small sip of her drink. “I’m from Saint Paul.”

“I’m from Minnesota too, but from a small town called Glacier Grove.” Most people from Minnesota hadn’t heard of it.

“I know,” she said matter-of-factly, before her cheeks turned pink again, realizing she’d shown just how much she knew about me.

“Of course you do.” My grin grew wider. “Just like all the other hockey players.”

That had her chuckling. “Oh, shush.” She playfully hit my arm, and I laughed too, the loneliness slowly starting to depart. “My younger sister might have had a crush on you, so I may know some things about you.”

“Just your sister?” I raised a brow, not able to keep the cocky grin off my face. She was a horrible liar.

She suddenly became really interested in her drink. “Uh-huh.”

“For some reason, I don’t believe you.”

This had her throwing me a haughty stare. “I was more into Crew Anderson.”

“Whoa. Choosing my childhood teammate over me?” I asked, pretending to be wounded by her admission. “I actually just got off the phone with him.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Okay, calm down there, Fallon,” I admonished. “I thought you were teasing me about being more into Crew, but now I’m actually offended.”

She laughed. “No, you’re not.”

I shrugged. “Well, either way, Crew is taken.”

“I saw that,” she said. “He got back together with his high school sweetheart. That’s so cute.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Their story is like something out of a romance novel. He’s always been the happiest with Addie at his side.”

“And what about you?”

I quirked a brow. “What about me?”

“Any high school girlfriends waiting back home for you?” she asked.

“Nope.”

She nodded, taking another drink. “I only know this because of my sister, but you haven’t ever had a serious girlfriend since entering the NHL. Why is that?”

“I’m glad your sister keeps tabs on me.” I’d let her keep using her sister as a scapegoat.

She was right, though. I hadn’t had a serious girlfriend since Anna, and we’d dated in college. Thankfully that whole disaster had happened before I’d become a professional athlete, so no one knew about that humiliating story.

“The words ‘serious’ and ‘girlfriend’ have never sounded appealing to me.” I answered as truthfully as I could. Even if nothing was ever going to happen between us, it was good for her to know I wasn’t the relationship type.

“Shocker.”

Her dry response had me chuckling. “Why do you say that?”

She shrugged. “You’re a hockey player.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by her answer. She had dated Tuvalo, after all.

Instead of disagreeing with her and arguing that not all hockey players were like her ex, I decided to roll with it. “Guilty as charged.” Easier to go with that being the reason I wasn’t interested in relationships than how I’d been dumped.

I took a large drink of my club soda and winced as I swallowed. “How do you drink this stuff?”

She laughed, her eyes sparkling with amusement at my disgust for her drink of choice. “Here, let me help you.” She flagged down the bartender and asked for some lime wedges.

He placed a plate of limes between us.

She pushed the plate toward me. “Squeeze some of these into your drink, and you’ll like it better.”

I gave her a doubtful look but did as she said.

I took a tentative sip. “Better, but not good. It still tastes like seltzer. Why don’t you just order a sprite?”

She remained quiet, keeping her eyes on her drink as she slowly spun the glass. I didn’t think she was going to answer me, but she finally said, “It reminds me of my dad.”

Her gutted expression made me want to reach out to her. I found myself wanting to comfort her, wanting to rekindle the sparkle that had been in her eyes only moments ago.

I nodded solemnly. “That’s a good reason to drink club soda.”

“Yeah, it is.” A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “I’ve actually grown to like it.” Her eyes got a faraway look in them. “He drank it almost every night. My sister and I would cuddle up next to him on the couch at night to watch whatever sporting event was on, and he’d have a can in one of his hands. He made a promise to himself and to us that he’d give up alcohol. Once my mom left, he started drinking heavily, and one night he realized he was the only parent me and Quinn had, and he couldn’t risk us losing him too. So he threw it all out and filled up the fridge with club soda.” She blinked a few times, bringing herself out of the memory. “Sorry. You probably don’t care to hear about that.”

“You never need to apologize for telling me about yourself and your family,” I assured her. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

Her eyes roamed my face as if she were trying to decipher any deeper meaning behind my words. I wasn’t sure what I wanted her to find, so I looked away, focusing on my club soda…which I had no intention of finishing.

“Which brings us back to why you are sitting here and not out with the team,” she said, taking us back to our original topic.

I had hoped to move us past that particular topic but maybe I should have known Piper wasn’t the kind of woman who would be easily deterred. She struck me as the kind of woman who, once she set her mind to something, wouldn’t back down willingly. And I had a feeling getting to know more about who I was behind the hockey player was part of it. I just had to figure out how to give her enough information to appease her but not more information than I wanted anyone to know—a fine line I was nervous to walk.

Although it seemed like all I did these days was walk a fine line with her. Piper was definitely someone I needed to be careful with. Between her being my physical therapist and my aversion to close relationships, nothing good could come from us getting to know each other better.

Which is why it didn’t make sense that I wanted to tell her exactly why I was alone in the hotel lobby. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t the plan.

But that didn’t stop my mouth from opening and telling her more than I’d told anyone before.