Page 21

Caleb

Tobie slips into the arena, head down, clutching the straps of her bag like it’s the only thing keeping her on her feet.

I watch her as she walks down the stairs and slips into a seat a few rows up from the rink. She’s wearing a pair of high-waisted jeans and a white tank top with an almost see-through white shirt over it. She looks good.

Even though she’s here to play pretend girlfriend, it’s like she doesn’t want anyone to notice her.

But I do.

I should have my eye on Coach or the assistant coaches, but ever since she walked in, I can’t get that noise I heard the other day out of my head.

Something slams into the back of my leg, and I twist around, glaring. “What the fuck?”

Javier skates up to me, skidding to a stop and sending up a spray of ice. “I’ve been calling your name for the last two minutes. What’s going on with you?” His eyes flick to Tobie, and the wrinkles on his forehead smooth out. “Ah… I see exactly what’s up.”

Reid cups his hands around his mouth and shouts her name. Her cheeks turn flame-red as she gives him a small smile.

I grab Javier and turn him away. “I saw something the other day. No. I heard something.”

Instantly, he looks intrigued. “What?”

“I stopped by Tobie’s room to tell her about practice.”

“And?”

I quickly glance around to make sure no one is close enough to overhear. Coach is screaming at Paxton, so we have a couple of minutes before he pulls us together again. I lean closer to Javier.

“She wouldn’t answer the door at first. I thought her head was hurting, and I should get Doc to check her out. Then she did, and she was wearing a robe and looked…” my voice trails off as I scramble for a word I already know.

Beautiful.

She looked fucking beautiful, hair all tousled and sexy, and strangely embarrassed.

Javier snaps his fingers in front of my face, and I yank my head back.

“Dude, what the fuck?” I glare.

“You were drooling.”

I stare at him.

He laughs. “What happened?”

I glance at Tobie and lower my voice further, even though there’s no chance she could hear me from the stands. “She slammed the door in my face, and I swear I heard her orgasm.”

It had been soft, breathy, and intensely arousing.

Walking down the stairs with a hard-on had been painful.

Seriously-fucking-painful.

It had been a miracle no one had noticed the tent in my pants as I crossed the quad to get back to my dorm. I’d spent ten minutes under a cold shower, and it hadn’t been enough.

I still can’t shake that sound out of my head, and I need to know what she’d been thinking of. Had I said something to trigger it?

Why hadn’t she invited me in?

Had there been someone in there with her like that piece of shit ex who doesn’t deserve her?

“Ah.” Javier nods and turns away.

I drag him back. “What do you know?” I hiss.

“Nothing.” His expression is angelic.

My eyes narrow.

He grins at me. “I gave her a vibrating egg to try out. Didn’t think she would, but I guess she did.”

He skates off.

I haul him back again, holding him this time because there’s no way he’s leaving until I know everything.

Coach is calling my name, but he can wait. I need answers. “Are you telling me you gave Tobie a vibrating egg, and she answered her door with it inside her?”

Why hadn’t she invited me in? I would have…

Would have done what, Caleb?

Standing on the other side of Tobie’s door and hearing her climax, I’d never been so hard so fast in my life. I’d wanted to kick the door down so I could see the look on her face.

His mouth twists in a smile. “I wonder if she used the lube I gave her as well.”

He gave her lube.

Jesus.

As if I’m not hard enough.

I angle my body away from Tobie and rearrange myself as I glare at Javier, who doesn’t look the least bit sorry.

Javier has never been shy about sex, about what he wants from a woman, and what he wants in return. There’s a reason we all call him Casanova.

“Why didn’t she take it out when I knocked?” I ask.

Javier shrugs. “Maybe she wanted you to hear.”

We both twist to face Tobie still sitting on her own.

I try to read her expression.

She glances at us, turns away, and back again. Then she does a quick peek over her shoulder as if she isn’t sure we’re looking at her. I’m not sure why, but I find myself wanting to smile.

“Do you think she has it in her now?” I try to recall how she’d walked into the arena. Had she been walking differently?

“And if she did, would that take precedence over the fact Coach is getting ready to kill you?” I jump as Reid pops his head between us.

“How much of that did you hear?” I ask him.

He massages the back of his neck. “Only the interesting bits. She looks uncomfortable with you guys staring at her. Not turned on. She doesn’t have it.”

I twist to face him. “And how would you know that?”

He winks at me as he skates away. “Cause I’ve seen her turned on.”

“As have I.” Javier claps my arm and skates away, leaving me alone.

So have I, but that was only because she was trying to get rid of me.

Practice goes as well as it can when all I can think about is Tobie watching me with a vibrating egg inside her.

Which is to say, fucking shit.

At one point, Coach recognizes that all his screaming in my face isn’t penetrating. The screaming has an effect until I glance over at Tobie, sitting on her own, knees pressed primly together, and then I’m distracted all over again.

That’s okay. I can practice on my own later.

At the end of practice, when Tobie gets up and gathers her bag to leave without having spoken to anyone but Reid and Javier, I don’t know what possesses me to skate over to her.

“Boucher?” Coach calls out. “I need a word.”

“I’ll be right there, Coach,” I yell back. “Tobie!”

She halts, eyes wide as I approach. I step off the ice and walk over to the bench to grab a bottle of water. “How’d I do?”

Her eyes dart from me to the observers.

I know what they must be thinking. It isn’t like me to be anything less than one hundred percent focused.

But we have a deal.

While she’s here, I intend to make it very clear to the girls who have been in the stands whispering, giggling, and calling out my name that I’m taken.

I feel them watching. So must Tobie, who has made it clear she isn’t comfortable being the center of attention.

I step toward her, blocking their view of her. “You said you didn’t like hockey. You like it any better today?” As I take a swig from my bottle, her eyes slide from my face to my mouth.

She shrugs. “It was okay.”

I try not to take it personally if she doesn’t like something I love so much. Not everyone likes sports.

Coach shouts my name.

“You want me to walk you to class?” I offer, setting my bottle down.

She shakes her head, glancing over my shoulder and smiling slightly. “Reid already offered.”

“And after that?”

Her gaze is evasive. “Uh, just hanging out with Reid.”

I study her, curious about what she doesn’t want to share.

Coach’s next yell is high in the decibel range that warns his patience is shot.

I pull off my skates, watching Reid grab his bag, toss it over his shoulder, and throw his arm around Tobie as he leads her out.

Javier is standing on his own, near the edge of the ice, phone against his ear, and he’s frowning. It’s Daniela playing games with him or his parents trying to convince him to drop hockey and take up medicine again. Poor guy never gets a break.

“My office,” Coach says, walking toward the short hallway that leads to the locker room and his office.

Which means a serious talk is coming.

I don’t leave him waiting. Only a fool would do that.

As everyone leaves, I quickly change and make my way through our locker room and to Coach’s office. He’s speaking before my bag hits the floor.

“Trainer says you’re still hitting the gym every day.”

I take a seat in the chair opposite his desk. “Not on Sundays.”

At least, not every Sunday.

And that’s only because it’s so busy that getting to a machine means waiting for longer than I have the patience for. I do a workout in my room then.

For several seconds, he doesn’t say a word.

Just silently observes me. Coach is fast approaching sixty, and while he’s getting grayer with each passing year and more lines creasing the corners of his eyes and mouth, he’s as sharp as he always has been.

He’s a hard taskmaster, but no one loves the game more than Coach McIntyre.

He steeples his fingers together on the desk. “You know the reason I wanted you for the team?”

I blink at the change in subject. “You wanted to be champion and thought I could make it happen.”

“Wrong.” He releases a breath and sits back in his seat, crossing his arms as he studies me down the long length of his nose.

“Or, not only. I saw myself in you, Boucher. Brilliant as a kid. Would be brilliant in high school, but a perfectionist. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but if you kill your joy, you can lose the magic you have. ”

My smile is bitter. “But I wasn’t brilliant in high school.”

He arches his brow. “Your team lost to the reigning champions. You took them to that championship.”

“But I didn’t carry them over the line.”

“I don’t want to see what happened to me happen to you. Passion is important. So is perfectionism. Don’t let one overpower the other. You still have love for the game. Don’t let it die.”

“You never talk about the days when you played, Coach.” He’s dropped hints over the years, but he never told us what made him quit to pursue coaching.

“Take off the next two days.” He shuffles papers on his desk. “I don’t want to see you, hear about you, or smell you anywhere near the arena or the gym.”

I sit up. “But…”

“Or I can bench you for the next game.”

“But I’m the captain.” It’s the last game before spring break. I need to know if I’ve fixed whatever the fuck was wrong with me.

“And it would be a real shame for the team to be without its captain,” he says, meeting my eye steadily.

He’ll do it. I’ve had years to know when he’s being serious and when he’s not.

To teach me a lesson he doesn’t think I’m learning, he’ll bench me.

He’s not just a coach. He has an open-door policy to talk about what’s on our minds because that feeds into how we play the game. I didn’t realize how much until this senior year. Now, something is broken inside me, and I don’t know what it is or if I can fix it before the big game.

I shove myself to my feet and snatch my bag from the floor.

The team likes to say I have a legendary glare. Coach has a legendary rage that would wipe the floor with anyone. Me included. I keep my mouth shut.

Before I can stalk out, he calls after me, “It’s for your own good, Caleb. I saw you with the girl before. Take her out. Get some fresh air, if you remember what that feels like, and do something fun. Hockey will be here when you’ve had the rest you need.”

The sun is setting on a late afternoon day when I emerge from the arena. Usually, I’d be at the gym or still on the ice.

But now?

I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself without hockey.

Fishing my phone from my pocket, I send a quick text, checking in with my mom.

It’s something I try to do a couple of times a week.

If I call her, she’ll want to know if I’ve met up with Christian yet, and she doesn’t need to know I’ve been dodging my little brother since I learned we’re going up against the Wisconsin Eagles—his team—in the championships.

They’re the running champions, and while we’re competitors, I can’t be his big brother. Not while I have a team to lead.

Hockey has always been the biggest part of my life.

My dad was in and out of our lives growing up. Not because he had to work. Or not only because he had to work.

I was twelve, and my little brother, Christian, was ten when Mom had enough of his affairs. Toronto was home, but Mom wasn’t happy there after the divorce. She needed her family around her, and Chris and I needed her. So we uprooted our lives and moved to the States.

Dad’s phone calls and visits started off regularly. He’d call every weekend, or we’d do something, then they petered out and stopped altogether. He could have a whole new family now, and none of us would have a clue.

I don’t have papers to write. I always do those as soon as I get them so they won’t distract me while I’m at practice or the gym. Coach has forbidden me from the gym, the rink, and the arena itself.

Sure, I could hit a gym in town, but can I really not go two days without working out? Our trainer always stresses that moderation and taking breaks are key—that injuries happen when we push too hard or don’t let our muscles recover.

Do I want to train so hard that I take myself out of the championship with an injury I could have avoided?

I walk away from the arena with no clue where I’m walking to.