Page 3 of Kitty Season (Green Line Ice #2)

W aiting outside an angry faculty members office is not how I wanted to spend my Friday afternoon. It’s also a scenario I’m not new to.

Noah and I spent many anxious minutes tapping our collective feet at the door of Coach Harris’s torture cell, but this is the first time I’ve been in the shit with an actual professor.

Come to think of it, before Noah came along and dragged me jersey first into trouble, I’d never been in this position.

Not once.

You see, at home I’m what some call a brown nose. A pitiful kiss-ass, goody-two-shoes. A mummy’s boy.

Shit!

Mum!

She’ll be devastated if she ever finds out. As the youngest of six boys I was her cutest and best behaved. I was also the only one to share her blonde hair and blue eyes, hence why I was her favourite … until my baby sister, Sam the troll giver, came along.

Shit!

She’s going to be pissed at me too. Like me, Sam is obsessed with hockey and wants to follow me to the states to play in the PWHL, North America’s Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Technically she wants to play in the NHL but a few things would need to change for that to happen.

As I picture the matching looks of disappointment on their faces, a repetitive tapping has Poppy again slip from my grip, and my eyes darting to shiny pink pumps attached to some very attractive, familiar legs.

“Really? You’re doubling down on the troll thing?”

“No,” I yell, jumping to my feet. “No I promise it was an accident … both times. There is nothing troll-like about you.” Crap, I want to die right now.

I drop my gaze to her feet. An action that goes down as well as my future psych grades will.

“Mr. Basse. Tell me exactly what you find so appealing about my feet? Actually, don’t answer that.

Follow me.” Making a sharp u-turn, she glides back into her office and points to a lime green chair covered in silky pillows.

“Sit.” I drop like a pup after a treat and wait for my fate. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“Oh, sure. Water would be great. Thanks.”

Plum moves to a makeshift minibar atop her desk, and pours two tall glasses of water while I take a look around.

It’s the first time I’ve seen inside these walls and I can’t help but wonder if she hired Lotte to do the decorating.

Like Lotte’s home, every wall is a different shade, one features a mural of Alice and the White Rabbit, and the furniture reminds me of a bag of skittles.

“That’s the house I grew up in.” She smiles, when I’m sprung studying a nest of photos hung on the wall. “Sydney,” she adds while placing our drinks on a coffee table opposite me. “My family moved to Boston when I was twelve. Perhaps you noticed the accent?”

“I did. Just a bit, though. Most people wouldn’t even notice.”

“You notice many things, I suspect.”

The fierce blush I hate more than anything about myself, heats my face. “Dunno about that.”

Plum twists her lips to the side and takes a seat in a yellow, checkered high back, crossing her right leg over her left at the ankles. “Often, when one feels like an outsider, we observe and mimic, or parrot those around us in an attempt to fit in. You, I notice, haven’t done that.”

Perplexed and suddenly parched, I lean forward, guzzle the entire glass of water and ponder what to say that won’t make me look as dumb as I feel. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“Do you want it to be a compliment? Because that in itself would be quite telling.”

“Umm.” I scratch my forehead, ‘cause honestly, I’m lost. I came in here expecting to have my ass chewed out, not to be psychoanalyzed by a hot teacher.

Undeterred, Plum continues. “Does speaking about yourself make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes. Yes it does. Very much so.”

“And why do you think that is?”

What the hell is going on here? I reach out to claim my water.

I’m not thirsty now, I just need a distraction.

It’s in my hand, paused halfway to my lips when I realize I drank it all already.

Still, I stupidly tilt my head back and attempt to suck out the remaining drops.

“Not sure,” I say, avoiding her studious gaze.

“I’ve always kind of stuck to myself. Guys at school spend the day rating girls, chasing girls, and bragging about the girls they reckon they caught.

If it wasn’t that it was footy, and I always preferred?—”

“Hockey.” It’s a statement not a question, one that curls the corners of my lips and helps me to breathe a little easier.

Apart from my family, hockey has been the one constant in my life.

I know who I am. I am different somehow and I’m okay with that.

But on the ice … on the ice I’m just one of the boys. A leader. Not a loser.

“Yeah. Hockey.”

The pitter patter of rain tinkers above and Professor Plum and I fall into a conversation about home that lies in the gray space between comfortable and awkward, and only ends when my phone begins to chirp in my backpack.

It’s a muffled reminder to haul-ass to training, but an odd feeling sinks into my bones as I work on the courage to ask permission to leave.

I came here thinking I was in trouble, ended up chatting for longer than I have with anyone since Noah left, and I’m not sure I want to go.

I’ve enjoyed talking to a teacher.

Shit …

Am I …

Lonely? To make things weirder, the hallucination of Troye and Quinn propositioning me forces its way to the back of my mind.

Again.

Now there’s two people who are decidedly un-lonely.

“Brady, are you okay?” Warm hands capture mine, bringing me back to the kaleidoscopic space I’ve shacked up in for over an hour. “You zoned out on me. Do you need more water?” Plum is hovering above me, her honey-colored hair dangling in my face and I have to resist leaning into her touch.

Yup. I’m lonely.

I snatch my hands away and stand so abruptly I almost knock her off her feet. “Sorry Prof?—”

“Faith, you can call me Faith when it’s just us.”

“Oh, okay,” I mumble, my blush again blooming. “Faith, I have to go to training. Sorry again about the troll.”

“I wasn’t bothered about the troll, Brady. I have the sense that you’re struggling a little and I just wanted to let you know I get it, and I’m here if you need. Now, off to training young man. I don’t want an angry call from Coach Harris. That man scares the puck out of me.”

Try being his goalie and lusting after his daughter.

The team is already on the ice when I stumble down the chute and through the gate.

One pad hangs haphazardly off my left leg and I think I have our back-up goalie, Christian’s gloves on, ‘cause he is a twerp and these suckers are tight. There’s no time to go back for mine now, not with Coach staring daggers at me, foot tapping as he waits by my crease.

Head down, I skate towards him, my body tensing on each stride.

“Glad you decided to join us, Basse.” His words are grumbled but still loud enough for every head to turn in our direction. “Not like we have the biggest game of the year tomorrow.”

“Sorry Coach. I was stuck in a meeting with Professor Plum and lost track of time.”

“Plum!” shouts Shane, our right winger and number one scorer now Noah’s gone. He skates up beside me, skillfully snowing me without a crystal touching Coach. “That is one seriously hot piece of?—”

“Faculty that you treat with respect, just like all the other women in your life.” Coach, a man who insists on us becoming good citizens not just great hockey players, finishes, arms crossed firmly over chest.

“Couldn’t have said it better. Exactly what I was about to say.” Shane gives my pads a tap, and skates away chuckling. Coach does not.

“You having trouble with your classes, kid?” he asks, voice dropping as he shifts closer. “You more than anyone need to keep that GPA up. Bad grades equal no scholarship, no hockey, no USA.”

“I know Coach, and no I’m not struggling with classes.

It’s just …” Collecting my thoughts, I pause.

Telling Coach I’m homesick and a little lonely is one thing.

Being heart sick over his daughter is likely to garner less sympathy.

“Not sure if you know, but Professor Plum is from Australia too. She was just checking in on me cause I’ve been kinda quiet.

” Coach, who is a good four inches shorter than me, straightens and if I’m not mistaken, stands on the tips of his toes so he can meet my gaze.

“And you’re sure that’s it? Nothing concerning grades?”

“Nothing.”

Looking reassured he nods and cracks the faintest of grins.

“Good. I’m glad Faith is looking out for you, but don’t forget that my door is always open, too.

” Shorter he may be, but he’s about three times stronger than me and almost knocks me from my feet when he slaps me on the back, before bellowing, “Okay forwards, zone one shots on goal. And for fuck’s sake give Basse some respect and take your time on those shots.

Let him follow the puck to the wall. We want to teach him, not kill him. ”

I love that about Coach. Unlike those back home, he looks after his goalies, setting up drills we’re more likely to see in real game time, and not wrecking our bodies with line rush after line rush.

Sure it may be fun and great shooting practice for the boys, but it kills us tenders.

He leaves me to it then, giving me time to greet Netty—my precious net—with a loving tap on each post three times, before launching into my superstition foiled warm up.

Thirty minutes into practice, I’ve shed the weight of the world and am in the zone, drenched in sweat and loving life, when I hear the singsong voice I would hear even if my ears were to be ripped off by stinging slapshots. “Oh Daddy, can I steal you away from your boys for a second?”

I raise my helmet and spot her immediately. Leaning over the boards, lips stained ruby red, her chocolate hair swept up into a messy bun is Quinn Harris. The prettiest, coolest, most off-limits girl in the universe.