Page 70 of Goalie Secrets
“Better company than you? That describes my houseplants, Randi,” I joke.
He wipes his armpits and crotch with a towel and, because he has the brain of a ten-year-old, throws the nasty thing at me. I step to the side, barely avoiding his junk’s bacteria. I’m tempted to do the same thing because immaturity tends to breed itself around here, but the door swings open.
Vanya.
I freeze. She walks in with Lionel and my heart does a weird yet familiar skip. She’s been working with other players recently, but we usually go to her and not the other way around. Seeing Vanya in my hockey surroundings is a mind trip. My brain scrambles, throwing instructions to act normally: Wipe the grin off your face! You’re drooling! Stop staring! Stop walking! That last one was crucial. I was approaching Vanya without evennoticing my legs were moving.
Her expression manages to be stern and gorgeous. She’s giving everyone in her path a curt nod. Except me. She doesn’t glance my way at all. She’s got her hair pulled back, a little wisp of it slipping free. She tucks it behind her ear.
The movement transports me to last night, when I crawled into her bed after the game. She had been reading with her hair up. Before she fell into my arms, Vanya had put her Kindle away and released her long black waves from their bun. The movement surprised me, but not as much as what she had said.
“I know you like it down.” Her voice was almost shy, as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
My god, she could make a man feel like a king by saying shit like that. Like it? I fucking love her hair down. My fingers got lost in those silky strands when I took her last night. Shit. I feel my body react to the memory.
Looking away, I stare at the towel on the floor and focus on its many disgusting associations.
Sweat. Germs. Randi.
Sweat. Germs. Randi.
Sweat. Germs. Randi.
Speaking of the guy, he’s staring at me with a mischievous grin.
“So, Jeremy, who’s the lucky girl?” Randi yells from his corner of the room.
Vanya stiffens. It’s barely noticeable and quickly covered up when she turns to ask Lionel a question. She seems absorbed in whatever Lionel’s saying, her eyes skimming the treatment plans pinned to the wall like they’re national secrets.
“Shut up, Randi,” I mumble and lie on the massage table.
“So rude! Isn’t he rude, Vanya?” Randi says.
I turn to watch her reaction. She doesn’t look up from scribbling notes but says, in a deadpan delivery, “Almost as rudeas wiping your ass on a towel and then throwing it across the room.”
Everyone hoots and hollers at her jive, but Vanya simply raises a brow and delivers her no-nonsense stare that translates totake your stretching routine seriously, or else.
The room eventually settles into the routine of recovery. Blake is helping me stretch. I shut my eyes so I can focus on listening for Vanya. She tells one person to get in the ice bath. Dexter and her chat about his knees. Meanwhile, I’m trying to act cool and not like a brat who isn’t getting enough attention.
She finally stands beside my table. The herbal sweetness of her aroma triggers me immediately. Want crawls up my spine. My fingers tingle with the need to haul her over my body. It must show on my face because she bites her lower lip, creating a stern line bracketed by deep dimples.
“Let’s take a look at the hip,” she declares, clinical as a textbook.
“Of course. You’re the boss.”
Nothing. No smile, no teasing comeback, just an efficient assessment as she rotates my leg, gently testing range of motion.
“What brings you to the arena, Dr. Kapur?”
Her tone is flat, eyes focused on her hands. “I’m here because of you, if you must know. I asked Lionel to show me more game footage. To better understand the strain on your hip and come up with preemptive exercises.”
“I could have shown you game footage, Vanya,” I whisper maybe a little too intimately. “All you have to do is ask.”
“Anyway,” she declares haughtily, “since I was already in the building, he asked me to check the team’s treatment plan.”
She steps away from me. “We’re done here.”
I understand that detachment is a form of armor for her. Not only because we can’t risk anyone catching on, but also as a consequence of being the only woman in the room. But it stillstings a little, not gonna lie. When she’s this close yet coldly detached, I want to tell every guy in the room that she’s mine. At least till October.