Page 45

TREV

On the bus back to the hotel after our morning skate, I scrolled through the photos I’d gotten from Cam since I’d left for this road trip.

The cake decorating class with Zane. Zach playing basketball with some neighborhood friends.

Both boys holding up their trophies after their soccer team’s season-end banquet.

I smiled as I looked at each photo for the millionth time. And as I read the messages Cam had sent with them.

Zane already wants to sign up for the advanced class. He loves it!

I think Zach wants to go out for basketball. He’s getting really good!

I think it’s bullshit that I don’t get a trophy for coming with them to all those evil soccer games. (skull emoji)

That last one made me laugh, which soothed the ache deep in my chest. These long road trips had always been a bear, but they’d been especially hard since Bryan and I had adopted the twins.

Now that I only had them every other week?

Now that some of those weeks were swallowed up by these trips?

It fucking hurt. I loved my career, but being away from Zach and Zane was a lot harder than I’d anticipated, and that had only gotten worse since the divorce.

Since the divorce, and since Bryan had decided to make everyone’s lives more complicated by getting with someone who was not only my teammate, but also the most insufferable bag of dicks I’d ever shared a locker room with.

Who knew it could actually be more miserable to be divorced from him than it had been to live with his cheating and all his other bullshit?

Or that he’d find the most antagonistic and inescapable man to be his new boyfriend?

And what if things got ugly with Chats and the team decided to separate us?

I closed my eyes and pressed my head back against the seat.

I had to do everything I could to get along with that asshole.

Don’t take his bait. Don’t engage. Don’t even look at him.

If it wasn’t about hockey, I didn’t need to interact with him, and I wouldn’t.

Not if our bullshit could get me sent to another team in a city where my kids didn’t live.

I was missing enough of their lives without letting my ex’s douchecanoe boyfriend make things worse.

If things escalated enough, even my no-move clause wouldn’t keep me here. Not forever.

The bus came to a stop and the doors squeaked open. I looked up and realized we were back at the hotel, so I gathered my phone, coffee, and headphones and followed my teammates off the bus.

I was kind of in the mood to go to my room and wallow in this funk. Look at texts. Look at photos. Hate my life.

But I was saved from that by an announcement that we’d be reviewing film in twenty minutes. Just enough time to go upstairs, change out of my suit and into a pair of sweats, and come down to the conference room.

I sat between Hoes and Bells. Reviewing film wasn’t my favorite thing in the world, but it was a welcome distraction today, so I didn’t complain.

We’d be playing Anaheim tomorrow, so our video coach, Gavin, cued up some clips of that team in action. First it was special teams.

“Their power play is first in the League by a mile ,” Gavin said, “so let’s stay out of the box tomorrow, all right?”

“Anyone gets a major or a double minor against this team,” Coach warned from the front row, “you’re bag skating for a week.”

That prompted grunts and nods. He might’ve been kidding, but maybe not.

Any penalty was dangerous against this team, but Anaheim was deadly.

Against New York last week, they’d scored twice on a double minor, putting them one ahead in a game they ultimately won 5-4.

A five-minute major had proven disastrous for Seattle—during that extended man advantage against the second worst penalty kill in the League, they’d scored four times in what ended up being a 5-1 victory.

So… yeah. Staying out of the box tomorrow would be a really, really good idea.

I leaned over to Hoes. “Fingers crossed the refs don’t fuck us.”

“Right?” He rolled his eyes. “If we take another penalty for someone tripping over nothing, I swear to God…”

I scowled and nodded. Three nights ago, Tremblay had taken a tripping penalty after someone had pretty much tripped over his own damn feet.

We’d managed to kill that penalty, at least. The same couldn’t be said for the one Bells took in Boston.

We’d ended up down a goal because they got a power play after the refs called Bells for interference…

after the other player crashed into him .

Such bullshit.

Gavin moved on from special teams to one of Anaheim’s other deadly weapons: odd man rushes.

“This includes,” he groused, “one-on-zero rushes.” He looked pointedly at a section of chairs.

I couldn’t see who he was glaring at, but I suspected it was the second and third defensive pairs, who’d let a few too many people squeak behind them recently.

Nothing made the D pairs look worse than a single player leaving them in the dust and attacking the goal unchallenged.

The goalies did the best they could in those situations, but they didn’t appreciate being left completely on their own.

And apparently Anaheim really, really liked doing that. On the screen, one of their forwards broke away, whipped past a startled defenseman, and started sprinting up the ice with three people on his heels and nobody in front of him but the goalie.

In a cartoonishly high-pitched voice, Hoes narrated, “After him! He’s getting away!”

Snickers rippled through the room.

As the player on the screen whipped left, then right, trying to fake out the goalie, Hoes shrieked, “Oh God! What do we do? What do we do?” The player fired the puck into the net, and Hoes’s melodramatic howl of despair had us all doubling over with laughter.

“Hoes,” Gavin warned, but the grin in his voice kind of killed the sternness.

“Sorry, Coach,” Hoes said. The devilish glint in his eyes said he was anything but.

He wasn’t done, either. During a video of a board battle, he muttered, “Goddammit, Carl, you’re stepping on my—I just polished my skate, you dick! Look at it! Look, you’ve scuffed?—”

“Hoes.”

“Wait! Wait! That’s my puck! Where are you going? Come back here at once!”

Gavin just facepalmed, and he didn’t succeed in hiding his own amusement.

As the player onscreen passed the puck, Hoes said, “Here—you think you can do better? You take it. Maybe you can—oh, hey, you got a goal.”

All around him, our teammates were vibrating with laughter. How Hoes managed to keep a straight face when he did this, I’d never know.

We wrapped up not long after that, and I doubted anyone was more relieved than Gavin. Film review was a necessary part of the process, but it could be seriously boring, especially for a bunch of hockey players who weren’t wired to sit still.

It ended eventually, though, and the coaches dismissed us.

We had the rest of the day to chill now, since our game wasn’t until tomorrow afternoon.

Some of the guys were heading out to play golf.

Others were chilling in their rooms or going out in search of food.

I had dinner plans with Hoes and Bells, but not for a couple of hours yet.

I thought I heard some of my teammates making noise about going to a go-cart track, but that might’ve been just to antagonize Coach.

Though he hadn’t banned us from going to places like that, he hated it when we did.

Apparently a couple of his teammates during his playing days had gone to a less than reputable track, and though I wasn’t exactly sure what happened, three of them had ended up missing that night’s game.

So… he preferred if we didn’t tempt fate.

Go-carts did sound kind of fun, though, and as long as it was a reputable place, then we could?—

“—don’t you, Trev?”

The sound of my name turned me around a half-second before I registered that it was Chats. “What?”

He smirked. “I was just saying, if Bryan keeps working me as hard as he does, I might end up on LTIR. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

There was a time very recently when that would’ve set my teeth on edge and made me see red.

This time, I just chuckled, rolled my eyes, and turned back around to keep walking.

His taunts about being with my ex-husband weren’t nearly as effective anymore.

Not when I’d be FaceTiming naked with Cam later tonight. The thought made me shiver and?—

“Hey, don’t be jealous,” Chats called after me. “Not my fault you downgraded from him to the hired help.”

That stopped me in my tracks a split second before I could tell myself not to take the bait. Several of our teammates halted too. Some were glaring at Chats. Others were watching me like they thought I might drop gloves with him right here in this hallway.

His shit-eating grin got bigger. “What’s wrong, Trev? Did I hit a nerve? Is that?—”

“Chats.” Spaulding put a hand on Chats’ chest and tried to herd him away. “Don’t. That’s not?—”

“No, no,” I said through my teeth. “Let him talk. The fuck did you say, Chats?”

The jackass kept grinning as he nudged Spaulding’s hand away. “What’s wrong? Had to screw the nanny since the janitor turned you down or something?”

“Dude, that’s not cool,” Hoes said.

I didn’t know if he meant outing me as being with Cam, or acting like anyone who qualified as “the help” was beneath him. Either way, I appreciated it.

“What?” Chats shrugged, grinning like the jackass he was. “I’m not wrong. Am I, Trev?” He inclined his head. “You know I’m right about?—”

“I know my personal life is none of your fucking business,” I snapped. “And it’s not for you to share with the rest of the team, whether it’s true or not.”

“But it is true. We all know it is.”

Some of the guys rolled their eyes.