Why have I come to rely on these early morning sessions with just me and the puck and the silence of an absent crowd to attempt to keep my head in the game?

  “What is it?” Maysen asks.

  I shake my head and eye his beer. “That shit better be cleared out of your system before game time.”

  Grunt. Smack. Thud.

  “Relax, Captain. The game is over twelve hours away and I’ve got an IV set up at noon. You know, I feel like I’m coming down with something”—he fake coughs—“so I already set it up with the doc to give me more fluids to replenish—er, flush my system.”

  “How are you even any good?” I joke, knowing full well, I’d never pull a stunt like that.

  “It’s in my genes.”

  “You wish it were in your jeans.” I roll my eyes.

  “Jealous?” he asks, when we both know my stats run circles around his.

  “Drink the fuck up,” I mutter.

  Grunt. Smack. Thud.

  “Mind telling me what the hell is up your ass, Maddox?” he asks again, his skates cutting across the ice the only other sound between us.

  “I do mind and it’s nothing,” I grumble, refusing to look his way, but swipe his beer from his hand as he skates past and help myself to the rest of it without asking. As much as it tastes good, it also isn’t what I want.

  It seems I don’t know what I want these days.

  “Nothing?” His chuckle resonates.

  “Yeah, nothing. Why?”

  He moves his jaw from side to side as his eyes question me with things I don’t quite understand. “Just trying to figure out what’s going on with you.”

  His words cause me to pause. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “We just thought—”

  “We?” I bark the word out. “So that’s what this is? The team designated you to come play the shrink with me?”

  “Not like you couldn’t use one,” he mutters under his breath.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Now he has my full attention.

  “It’s . . . we’re concerned.”

  “About yourselves? About the team? About me? What exactly are you concerned about?” I demand, the stick in my hand and the pucks lined up waiting to be shot now forgotten.

  “You’re playing dangerously. Over the past two years, you’ve become the man we look to for leadership—to lead us—and now in the past four months, you’re like a one-man show out there. While that’s great for your stats and the scoreboard, it fucking sucks for team morale. You’re not better than us”—he pauses and emits a laugh of contrition—“well, maybe a little . . .” He chuckles. “We’re on your side, Cap, and when you’re on the ice, your play suggests you don’t know we’re even there. Sure, we’re winning, but at what cost? So again, what’s your fucking deal?”

  His words are like a slap to my face. A slap I’ve anticipated but that doesn’t lessen its sting. “Good to know my team thinks so highly of me.”

  “No one thinks more highly of you than you do yourself.”

  My hands tighten on the beer bottle. “Where the fuck do you get off . . .” My words fade as I check myself before I say something I’d probably regret. Hell, I’m the leader of this team. I shouldn’t be the one being put in his place.

  But can you fucking blame them, Maddox?

  “We all have a stake in this. That’s where we get off talking to you.” He blows out a breath in frustration. “You’re the big shot the Jacks took on to build this franchise to its full potential. And it’s fucking working. We’re tearing up the league and closing in on a playoff berth for the first time in this club’s history.”

  “And the problem with that?”

  “What the fuck is your endgame? You were here for the long haul. The franchise player, but now . . . now it seems you want the fuck out. You went from being our captain who pulls us together, who’s led us to this point, to acting like you’re a one-man show.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That’s exactly right. It is bullshit, but on your part. Hell, if you put as much effort into the game as you do your anger, we’d already have a fucking playoff berth clinched.”

  “Or maybe you should do it without me.” I throw the baseless threat into the air between us but have never felt as strongly about the statement as I do right now. A man can only keep going for so long.

  “That’s how you’re going to be, Hunter?” He shakes his head and I feel his disappointment—and fucking hate it. “Come on. We’re just concerned for your well-being.”

  We hold each other’s stares for a few seconds as I try to process why I’m so pissed off by this. As I try to figure out why I should expect them to have my back when I’ve been a selfish prick for the past however long.

  The hardest part about processing it all though is knowing how I should feel and still giving a shit less.

  “Tell me something, Maysen . . . if I’m playing like a one-man show, being selfish but we’re still winning. . . which one do you want me to be?

  “Because I assure you, if I started passing the puck more and shooting less, I’d have one of you on my ass asking me what the hell was going on in the opposite way.”

  “Oh, so none of us have earned our own spots on the team, Maddox? That what you’re saying?” And when I don’t answer, I hear him mutter, “Asshole.”

  Yep. That’s me. Grade-A asshole.

  I throw the empty bottle across the ice in frustration and turn back to my row of pucks without saying another word.

  My head is filled with so much shit I can’t see straight, think straight . . . anything. It’s so fucked.

  You’re the one who fucked up, Hunter. You owe it to him to fulfill his dream. You owe him.

  I’ll never stop owing him.

  Grunt. Smack. Thud.

  His talent was unmatched.

  Grunt.

  My one-man show isn’t even good enough for him.

  Smack.

  My dad’s words . . . they fill my head, fuel the anger, feed the rage, expose the hurt. The goddamn everything.

  Thud.

  “Since when do we drink when we work?”

  Catching me off guard just as I hit the puck, Dekker’s voice rips through my flustered concentration, and the puck goes sailing into the stands.

  I hate that I don’t want her here.

  I despise that I do want her here.

  And when I turn to where the sound of her heels clicking on the concrete of the tunnel leading up to the ice, I hate myself even more for remembering. How good we were in bed, how explosive—almost violent with lust.

  Fucking incredible.

  She stands with the beer bottle I chucked onto the ice in one hand, her other hand on her hip, and rocking a pinstriped pantsuit that looks part time to party, part don’t fuck with me.

  Totally in control when last night she was anything but.

  Maysen is behind her as he walks down the tunnel toward the locker rooms. I was so pissed, so focused, I didn’t even realize he’d left.

  Lucky for me, now I don’t have to address the bullshit he was hoping to resolve. Unlucky for me, I’m being stared down by a much tougher opponent, and the look of disappointment on her face isn’t one I really care to acknowledge.

  I already have a mother.

  I already own guilt.

  “Should I be worried there are more bottles hidden elsewhere?” she asks and shifts her weight.

  “You know us hockey players, Dekk. If there’s a rule, we’re going to break it. You want to strip search me?” I lift my hands above my head. “I might have a stash somewhere on my body you can find.”

  “Drinking on a game day? At eight in the morning?” She lifts a lone brow and ignores my comment.

  “What? Last night you were all about touching me and today you’re not?” I tsk. “My, how things change.”

  Anger fleets through her expression, followed closely by embarrassment, but just as quickly as it’s there, it disappears.

  Hmm. Seems what I did last night got to her more than I thought.

  “The beer?” she asks, giving a stoic glance from the beer bottle in her hand and then back to me.

  “Sometimes you just need to relax.” I shrug. What does it matter? What do I care what she thinks of me?

  Why is she here?

  “You going to call the LumberJacks management police on me?”

  DEKKER

  I STARE AT HUNTER. AT his shirt plastered with sweat and how it clings to his body, despite the chill of the ice his skates are standing on. He has his warm-up pants on and is without a helmet, his hair curling at the ends from the sweat.

  And all I see in his eyes is anger I didn’t put there. Or maybe I did. Rejection can do that to a man . . . but there’s something more here. Something I walked in on that doesn’t make sense.

  “Don’t give me that look, Kincade,” Hunter mutters as he skates over to the penalty box where his electrolyte drink sits.

  “What look?” I ask.

  He half laughs, half snorts and meets my gaze across the distance. “Disappointment. Disproval. Disdain. I’m the king of all of them, so save your breath—or in this case—your glare, because it’s not going to work with me.”

  “Are we working on emotions that start with the letter D today?” I ask. A hint of my embarrassment and anger over how I acted last night creeps into my voice, but I mask it with sarcasm. “If that’s the case, I’m more than impressed with your answers thus far.”

  He clenches his jaw in response and then skates back over to line up more pucks so he can shoot them. And he does, one after another, each shot taken with laser precision and a healthy dose of fury behind it.

  He goes through the first ten lined up and then stops to catch his breath.

  His talent and skill are undeniable, but so is the beer bottle in my hand.

  “Just because you’re the captain and star of this team, doesn’t mean management won’t frown upon this,” I say, unable to let this go.

  “Fuck the management.”

  His comment surprises me. Always a team player and public mouthpiece for the team, I’ve never heard him talk like this.

  “Those are some strong words,” I say.

  “The iron fist they seem to hold me with is even stronger.”

  “Iron fist?” Where is this coming from? “I believe they pay you a healthy sum to put their jersey on every night and play a sport that you love, so unless they’re handcuffing you to a locker afterward and forcing you to not eat or drink for days, I think you’re being ridiculous.”

  “Handcuffs, huh?” His eyebrow quirks up, and his constant need to distract from the gist of our conversation tells me I’m hitting too close to home.

  “What’s going on?” I ask again.

  “We’ll just say we’re not seeing eye to eye at the moment,” he mutters and then slaps a shot off and hisses when he misses.

  “No one likes a player who’s hard to handle and honestly, Hunter, you’re becoming hard to handle.”

  “No one likes unsolicited advice from someone who has no bearing on his career, either,” he counters, the rebuke stinging but deserved.

  The problem is, I do care about him. Doesn’t he get that’s where my hostility stems from?

  And only a crazy person would say that, Dekker.

  I put my hands up in surrender to both him and my own thoughts. “You know I only want the best for you.” I take a few steps in his direction in the first row of the stands. I’m close enough to catch the hitch of his movement and to see uncertainty flicker in his eyes. It’s almost as if he needs to talk but doesn’t see me as someone he can trust. I hate that. “What is it, Hunter?”

  “Nothing. It’s . . . never mind.”

  But I see it, and he knows I see it. The question is what do I see, though?

  “Twelve years in the league. You’re thirty-two, in the top twenty of all-time best scorers and you still have years left to play. Made it there faster than anybody else.”

  “You make a habit of studying people’s stats who aren’t your clients?” he asks.

  “It’s my job to know who the best of the best is.” I only speak the truth but hate that it probably comes off like I’m kissing his ass.

  “What’s your point, then?” he asks, but his tone is different, quieter, more reserved.

  “No point. I just know you’ve been running full steam since you entered this league. Straight off NCAA championships, where you still hold some records, right into the NHL.”

  “Every kid’s dream, right? So many would kill to be in my shoes. Save it. I’ve heard it all. I’ve thought it all, and I leave everything out on the ice every damn time I play.”

  I nod slowly, letting him know I hear him, but I don’t buy what he’s saying. I’m missing something. “But you’re angry.”

  “And your point?” he snaps.

  “It’s affecting your game. Your life.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he mutters as he skates past me.

  “I know a change of scenery is sometimes needed. I know that stars can sometimes burn out. From what I’ve seen—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, his skates cutting into the ice as he stops right in front of me, the plexiglass the only thing separating us.

  “I make a living knowing what I’m doing. Just like you do.” I shrug, trying to act as unaffected as possible by his nearness. Trying to pretend my pulse isn’t racing as my body remembers his kiss last night. Trying to hide the flush on my cheeks over how I overstepped.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I say quietly. “I overstepped. I . . . your point was made. Again. I apologize.”

  Our eyes hold, question, dismiss, and right when I think the conversation is over, his lips turn up in the slightest of smirks. “Same hotel as the team?”

  The mental whiplash lasts only seconds as I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing he threw me. “Why am I staying in the same hotel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Convenience.”

  That cocky grin spreads wider as he just shakes his head ever so slightly and takes a step closer so his skates hit the barrier between us.

  “What?” I ask, relieved by the sudden levity. This verbal sparring is exhausting.

  “Just trying to figure you out.”

  “Didn’t you know? I’m an open book,” I tease.

  “An open book inside a block of ice.”

  “Amusing,” I mutter, unnerved by his intense scrutiny and hurt by his dig, even though it’s more accurate than not. Those eyes of his hard to look away from.

  “I’d say it’s amusing too, but I’m the one who’s always on the other end of whatever game you’re playing.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I shift on my feet. This is the last place I need to address why I’m here in Chicago. The mood has changed, the moment lost to speak to him. “You know what? I’m not going to be your verbal punching bag. By the way Maysen stalked out of here, you’re pissed at him. Fine. Be pissed at him, but not me. I know that look in your eyes, and I’m not going to be the one you toy with so you feel like a man in control again.”

  I stalk toward the players’ opening, the click of my heels only rivaled by the slice of his skates on the ice. And just as I reach the entrance to the tunnel, Hunter is there, his hand on my bicep pulling me back toward him.

  “A man in control again?” he asks, his fingers adjusting his grip as his chest brushes over mine. “I’m always in control.”

  “That one seemed to touch a nerve, did it?”

  “Maybe you should ask yourself how in control you are, huh?” His eyes flit down to my lips and back up to mine, the warmth of his breath hitting my lips. I can all but taste his kiss again but know that mistake will not be repeated.

  No way.

  No how.

  Not after last night.

  “Let’s move on to adjectives that start with I. Irritable, much?”

  His chuckle is that low rumble that tells me he’s ready to play. That’s the last thing I want right now. “Irritable? How about indecisive?”

  “Who, you?”

  “No, you,” he sneers and takes a step closer.

  “Not in the least.”

  “No?” His eyes flicker from my eyes to my lips again. “This was a huge mistake,” he says, pretending to sound like me last night before clearing his throat. “Right back to that phrase, huh?”

  “What do you mean?” I tug on my arm to no avail.

  “I mean, it’s amazing how convenient it is for you to fall back on that line. You said it the last time I saw you and you said it last night.”

  I did? I try to relive the moments, knowing I said it in the elevator but not remembering the time before. All I remember is trying to keep my emotions under check so Hunter Maddox had no clue I’d failed at the casual dating—er, sex situation—we’d found ourselves in. Sure, we fell into bed that first time, then verbally fought our way out of it, only to fall back into it more often than not over the course of six months.

  But we weren’t dating.

  You could have asked either of us and we would have confirmed that. We were benefits buddies. The call we’d make when we were in the same city, at the same time—hell, even when we weren’t we’d arrange to be. That’s how great our sexual chemistry was.

  The problem? Even though we couldn’t be in the same room longer than thirty minutes without fighting—unless we were having sex—I became addicted to him. His gruff way, his cutting sense of humor, and his . . . well, his cock and fingers and oh-so-gloriously skilled tongue. But I can’t see that in him now.

  “Cat got your tongue, Dekker?” he asks, and leans in so I panic he’s going to kiss me. Panic I’m here in the arena with the team nearby and Hunter is body to body with me. But I don’t move. I don’t back down. I refuse to let him feel like he has the upper hand again like last night. “Because the way I see it, this is your MO. We’d have incredible sex, you’d get up and say, ‘Shit, that was a mistake,’ and then collect your clothes or kick me out of wherever with a lame excuse about how you had somewhere to be until we’d see each other again. We were always a mistake. Every time. Until the next time that is.”