Page 7 of Two Guys One Puck (Gods Versus Monsters Hockey #2)

SEVEN

KTYTOR

M y summer gets a whole lot more interesting when Seaborn walks into the ballroom of the NHL development camp. What are the fucking odds? I’ve spent the last three months trying to escape thoughts of him.

The way he touched me burned into my brain. And not a goddamn whisper from him. He still has me on Snap, and I see him watch my stories sometimes, but not a word. It shouldn’t bother me like it does. I’m not used to being focused on anything other than hockey.

I can’t let him distract me from my goal.

His gaze flicks over me as he walks by. He walks to the other side of the locker room to put his bag down.

Whatever .

His presence doesn’t matter. I don’t plan on playing college hockey longer than I have to.

A degree is useless if I get drafted, and that’s the only way I’m getting my family out of Ukraine.

The war gets more dangerous every day, so I do not have time to waste.

This is a rare opportunity. The NHL only has about seven hundred and fifty players.

I need to be one of those, and if showing I’m better than Seaborn gets me drafted, so be it.

Neither of us has time to take our eyes off the prize. Even a casual fuck could become too distracting. I’ve made a point not to allow myself such things.

So really, there is no reason to interact with him. It’s better that he’s pretending like he doesn’t know me.

They hand out gear and then tell us to grab some breakfast.

“When you get your plates, find your table color that matches your tag. That will be your small group for the week,” Walker Fig, the Dragons’ head coach, says.

When I get to the green table, I find Seaborn already sitting there. “Mother Mary. I cannot escape you.” I drop my gear bag and set my plate on the table.

“Hell.” Seaborn glances up. The red line on his nose from where I hit him is still visible, and that makes me a little hard. “What are the odds?”

The rest of the guys in various stages of sitting down glance between us.

“They had to have done it on purpose,” a red-haired guy says. Lennox—I think he plays for the Guardians.

“Why would you think that?” Seaborn says, letting his apprehension show.

“To see if we can play nice, of course,” I say, locking eyes with Lennox.

“It’s a good point.” A guy from the Griffins takes a seat to my left. I don’t know his name, but my team calls him Chad. He just looks like a Chad.

“I can play with anyone.” I look at them each in turn because it doesn’t matter if this is our ‘team’. We are still competition.

When the room is settled, Coach Fig walks up to the podium and welcomes us all. He gives a very canned speech about being excited to work with us.

I focus on eating. Part of my strategy to beat Seaborn is to get bigger, so he can’t throw me around. I can’t skip needed calories. Especially while doing all the extra training this week.

“This week is not a tryout,” Fig says, catching my attention.

“This week is to show you a bit about what our team is like and get some information on what playing professional is like. This is development. We want to get to know all of you on and off the ice. That being said, you control how hard you work and how you deal with your competition. All of you have the same goal. We want to help you succeed with that. We want you to take these skills back to your teams, too, and we want to see how you develop over the next year when we have some of you come back.”

A few other people from the training staff speak, and then we’re taken to a hotel next to the facility to put our stuff in our rooms and change into our workout gear.

I pull on a neon red rash guard and gray shorts.

Monsters’ colors. We got jerseys and gear in the Dragons’ colors for when we’re on the ice, but we wear our own clothes for the rest.

I grab a pre-workout I’d brought and walk down to the lobby to wait for the rest of the guys. When I get down there, I find Seaborn already waiting. How was he faster? It’s like this guy can’t do anything that’s not infuriating.

He gives me a tight smile when I walk over.

“Do you never take a minute off?” I take the seat across from him instead of next to him to keep myself in check. I find myself wanting to push every button he has.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He checks his watch like he’d rather be anywhere else.

I can’t decide if he’s being cold as a defense mechanism or because he doesn’t care. I hate that I care. That I can’t stop thinking about his hand on my dick.

“I propose a truce while we are here.”

His gaze lifts from his phone, searching my face. “Why?”

“Have you been hit too many times in the head to figure that one out yourself?” I throw back. It’s second nature to slip into the snark when he’s involved; I can’t help it with his fucking attitude.

He rolls his eyes. “You think they will care?”

“Are you sure they won’t? That’s the real question, and unless you can say for certain, we are only hurting ourselves by keeping it up.

The whole league knows how many fights we got into last season.

” Thankfully, they didn’t know anything else.

“They talked about it in the lead-up to our Frozen Four game, and then after. The Dragons put us in the same group for a reason, no?”

Seaborn’s lip curls in anger, but he reluctantly nods. “They had to have.”

“And that’s to see how we interact.” If I have to spoon-feed this to him, I will.

“To what end? They won’t end up drafting us both.”

“What if they do? We don’t know how anything will go.” I want to be at the top of the draft, but no one can predict what a team will do. We both know that.

“It’s not going to happen, so what’s the point?”

“To see if we can get over petty bullshit and play with whoever is on the team, disagreements or not,” I say, not caring if it sounds condescending. He will either see the truth or he won’t.

Voices sound from near the elevator. We both turn to see a few guys getting off.

“Well?” I ask.

“Fine.”

“I’m right.” I want to hear him say it.

“I said I’d do it. That’s all you’re getting.”

Now I have to figure out a way to stop myself from pushing his buttons.

We make it through the workout without issue. It’s solo stuff. Then we go to meet with the team nutritionist. This isn’t anything new, the Monsters also has one. But for a lot of the guys, it’s a foreign concept. I’ve heard horror stories of guys living off Red Bull and Oreos.

Although dorm living doesn’t make it easy to eat right.

“Next, we’re going to have you work with our chef.”

Shock ripples through the group. Have none of them done any research on development camps?

I’m last to arrive, and I find the only person without a partner is Seaborn. Like the universe hates us…or the Dragons want to push us as far as we will go. Not only in the workouts but in our personal lives as well. I guess it’s fair.

The chef walks us through a few simple dishes we’ll be making for lunch.

“Do you want to prep or cook?” Seaborn asks.

“Can you cook, princess?” I accidentally fall back into the pet name habit I have with him.

“Can you?” he throws back, giving me no visible reaction.

“We are learning.” I get by enough because if I didn’t make my own food when I was a child I would have gone hungry.

“You might be. I can already cook.”

“Then take the reins.” I gesture for him to go for it.

Shock colors his face for a split second before he fixes his mask. “Shouldn’t you, if you are learning?”

I shake my head. “No, ladybug. If we want to make this a real truce, we have to make each other better. Anything you’re good at, you take the lead, and anything I’m good at, I do. It will only make us look better.”

He considers my words. “We’ll be on the same team.”

“What will they think when you can’t get over yourself and don’t pass the puck to me?”

His upper lip pulls, and I know I’ve got him. “I already agreed to your truce.”

“Should we kiss on it?” I say under my breath.