Page 7

Chapter 7

Piper

T he music in the hotel lobby seemed loud to me now as I waited for Zeke to respond to my earlier question as to why he was sitting by himself instead of out having fun with his team. As my eyes roamed over his face, I could see he was having some kind of internal battle, so I waited for him to speak. I didn’t want to say something that might make him keep his thoughts to himself. There was a craving inside me that wanted to know the inner workings of his mind. I’d watched him from afar for years, as stalkerish as that might have sounded, and in all the games I’d watched and all the interviews I’d seen, he’d always seemed so happy, so full of life, so carefree. The Zeke Lawson I thought I knew wouldn’t have been sitting alone looking somber, especially not after a win.

I continued to let my eyes peruse him. His dark curls were going in all different directions, even more than usual, as if he’d run his hands through it several times. His broad shoulders looked tense as he kept staring into his glass where it sat on the bar, his hands wrapped around it. His dark blue henley made his blue eyes seem even brighter, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the color combination of his dark hair and light eyes.

But underneath all that muscle and good looks was a man I didn’t know at all. One I was finding I wanted to know more about—and it actually didn’t have anything to do with his looks. There was something about Zeke that made my body hum when we were in the same room, that made me want to smile when I had nothing to smile about, that made me want to open up to him about things I didn’t normally talk about. Like my dad, for example. I wasn’t sure why I had told him that whole story about the club soda. I could have given him some flippant answer about how I just loved club soda, but I’d found myself wanting to tell him, wanting him to know the real reason. Which was odd since I didn’t like to talk about my dad, unless I was with Quinn. It was too painful. So why had I felt the desire to talk about him with Zeke?

Maybe it had to do with how I sensed a hidden pain inside Zeke that I hadn’t ever noticed before. But seeing him tonight alone, a heaviness wrapped around him, had my feet walking over here before I could overthink it. There was another side to him he didn’t show to the cameras, and I was beginning to realize there was more to him than his happy-go-lucky guy persona. And maybe just knowing that had me wanting to share something with him that I kept from people too. To let him know he wasn’t alone in whatever he was going through.

I wanted to reach out my hand and rest it on his arm, to provide him with some sort of comfort as he struggled with whatever he wanted to say, but I only gripped my drink tighter to keep my hands from wandering out on their own. It was one thing to talk about personal things with him, but it was a different thing entirely to break the physical contact barrier. The only time I should be touching him was to do my job as his physical therapist, not to comfort him.

In the dim light I could see him swallow before finally turning those blue eyes on me, a look of vulnerability there that I hadn’t seen in him before. “I only have a one-year contract with the Wolves. What’s the point of getting to know the team when my days here are numbered? Heck, my days in the NHL are numbered. You and I both know I’m on my way out. Eventually I’m going to have to leave hockey behind—to leave behind everything I’ve ever known.” He shrugged one shoulder and turned his gaze straight ahead, looking at the different bottles of liquor lined up on the wall behind the bar. “There’s nothing to celebrate.”

I hadn’t known about the length of his contract, but I didn’t know too much about that kind of stuff when it came to the team. But I could imagine that not having a multi-year contract could mess with your head.

Then again, he’d been a professional hockey player for over a decade. Wasn’t that something he could celebrate? How he had been able to play for as long as he had?

“Your career isn’t over yet,” I said, hoping to help him see there was definitely a bright side. “You’re still playing hockey, still a part of a team, and still getting lots of minutes on the ice. Why not celebrate that?”

“I know.” He let out a heavy sigh. “And I’m not trying to be ungrateful, but it all seems tainted when there is a ticking clock over my head following me around everywhere I go.” He ran his hand through his hair, his curls changing directions. I had assumed correctly that he’d been running his hands through his hair over and over tonight. “Then add all the extra physical therapy sessions that none of the other players have to do, and it’s like no matter what I do, I’m getting hit in the face about how it’s all coming to an end.”

I figured that was why he had been so grumpy during our sessions the first month, but I hadn’t realized how much it was eating at him.

“And you’re not ready for it to end,” I hedged, hoping he would expound.

“Not at all.”

He didn’t say any more, and I wondered if I should push but didn’t know if it was my place. We didn’t know each other all that well, even though we saw each other almost every day. Neither of us was particularly chatty during our sessions.

“You’re not excited to retire?” I finally asked, still wanting to know more. I had assumed that maybe the idea of retiring held at least a tiny bit of an appeal. After years of putting his body and mind through a grueling hockey schedule, I figured a break might sound nice.

“No.” A one-word answer was all he was giving me.

I tilted my head, looking at his serious expression. His one-word response had me wanting to keep digging.

“The idea of having time to do something other than hockey for a change doesn’t interest you?” I asked.

He finally turned to look at me again. “You’re going to keep at this until I explain why, aren’t you?”

I gave him a cheeky grin. “Probably.”

He rolled his eyes, a hint of a smile on his lips. He might be acting like my prodding was annoying, but I noticed the way his shoulders relaxed at my reply.

“If you must know, retiring scares me.” He said it like that was all that needed to be said. Like it wouldn’t elicit a whole different round of questions from me.

And since he wasn’t willingly going to expound, I had to ask the obvious question. “What scares you about retiring?”

“Everything.”

I gave him a pointed look. “Can you please give me more than one-word answers and cryptic sentences?”

He chuckled. “Maybe I like keeping you on the edge of your seat.”

“You’ve had my full attention since I noticed you sitting here.”

His grin grew. “I’m pretty sure we’ve established that I’ve had your full attention since the start of my career.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he spoke before I could offer a rebuttal.

“Oh, I meant your sister’s attention. My mistake.” The mischievous look on his face proved that he had never believed my sister was the one who followed his career.

I closed my mouth, keeping my words to myself because he was teasing me and that gorgeous smile of his was back, the forlorn look finally gone from his features. Sadness and Zeke weren’t supposed to go together.

“No comment,” I said, turning away from him.

His laugh filled the room, and I tried to cover my smile by taking another sip of my drink.

Once his laughter faded, he took a deep breath and then said, all playfulness gone from his voice, “If you must know why retiring scares me, it’s because I don’t remember not having hockey in my life. I started at such a young age, it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s all I’ve ever had.” His words had me turning back to him to see the vulnerability written on his face. “I have no home to return to. No family to spend time with. No other hobbies to cultivate. There’s nothing waiting for me after hockey.” He paused, his gaze going to his hands. “It’s like there is this void waiting to pull me in, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost in the darkness.”

My hand reached out and rested on his arm. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried. I wasn’t sure why he had no home to go back to or what he meant by having no family, but knowing that had my heart wanting to provide some comfort even if it was just for him to know that I’d heard what he’d shared, that he wasn’t crazy for feeling the way he did. “That is scary.”

His eyes darted to me. “Really?” His baffled expression had me wondering what he thought I was going to say.

“Yeah, really.” I squeezed his arm lightly and removed my hand. Touching him in a non-work-related way was messing with my head. “I can’t fully understand what you are feeling, but I can understand being scared of an unknown future, of a future that is so different from what you’ve known.”

I didn’t know what he’d been through or what had happened to him to make him feel so alone, and losing my dad wasn’t the same as Zeke retiring, but it was the closest thing I could relate to. My dad had always been there, and the reality that the rest of my life was going to be spent without him had been a scary thing to grasp. Still was, if I was being honest. Sometimes I still found myself reaching for my phone to call him, just to remember all over again that I’d never be able to talk to him again.

His eyes softened. “Thank you.”

I lifted my glass toward him. “If you can forget about my sister’s crush on you, we can call it even,” I said playfully in an attempt to keep things light, which somehow I knew he would appreciate.

A smile slowly spread across his lips as he lifted his glass. “I can forget about your sister’s crush on me.” He tapped his glass gently against mine, his grin turning wicked. “But not yours.” He winked at me and took a drink.

I tried to stop the flush that spread up my neck and to my cheeks, but it was useless. I shook my head at him, smiling as I took my sip, knowing I shouldn’t have been surprised by his comment.

Was it wrong that there was a part of me that was glad he liked that I had a crush on him? Probably. But I couldn’t change that fact. The only thing I could do was ignore it.

Except ignoring Zeke would be impossible. Besides being his physical therapist and that spending time together was inevitable, there was something about him that called out to me, that made me want to get to know the man behind the hockey facade.

And that had me scared.

For me, there was nothing scarier than falling in love again. Especially with a hockey player.