Tried to, anyway. Devon wasn’t a huge guy—about six-foot-one—but he had a long reach, and he used it to swipe the puck away. By the time anyone knew what was happening, he was already sprinting for the other end.
I whistled as I handed the iPad back to Amy. “Hedeservesto be in Vancouver.”
She nodded. “Agreed, but I won’t bitch about having him here for as long as they let him stay.”
Amen to that.
In the end, the Abbotsford Grizzlies redeemed themselves for that utter disaster the other night. The final score was 6-3, and Devon was named first star after racking up three points—two assists and a goal.
He skated out to salute the crowd, smiling big and drenched in sweat. Christ, he was hot.
And a really, really fucking good hockey player who deserved the career he’d worked so hard to earn. I couldn’t be selfish and derail that for him, no matter what a glimpse of that smile did to my blood pressure.
It really was only a matter of time before Vancouver snatched him out of Abbotsford.
That would be huge for him. Great for Vancouver. Not so great for Abbotsford.
But maybe then I’d finally be able to breathe again.
CHAPTER 10
DEVON
The elation of winning that game carried us through the flight the next day to Montreal. Which was good because, despite the fact we were flying from Abbotsford Airport, we had to stop in Calgary for a layover. Two hours wasn’t bad. Watching Coach as he and Amy conferred? Still not bad. Wanting to follow him when he went to the bathroom so we could join the mile-high club? Ridiculous. I’d never wanted that experience with any guy I’d ever met. I wasn’t adventurous. Probably helped the bathrooms on West Jet planes were so tiny that I could barely turn around in the fucking things. Two people would be absolutely impossible. Let alone two D-men.
Stop perving on Coach. He got the message. He stopped texting.
Oh, and someone must’ve truly wanted to fuck with me—after we’d landed and checked into our hotel, I was in the room next to his.
God save me.
Seriously.
Someone also had the worst sense of humor ever.
I’d been paired up with Hairs.
Not Gards. Not Claus. Not Kulie.
Nope. They stuck me with the third line douchebag left winger with a massive attitude.
Whatever.
At best, I could hope it was a one-time thing and I’d be with someone else after we landed in Toronto. Somehow, I didn’t see him giving me any privacy if I met up with old teammates or coaches or anybody.
The guy was a pig. Somehow, within forty minutes after hitting the room, his stuff was strewn everywhere, there was a wet towel on the bathroom floor, and a drop of toothpaste in the sink.
Before I knew what was happening, he was gone. Fled to places unknown. Likely a bar. He was legal—by a few months. Legal to drink and do pot in Canada was nineteen. Many an American nineteen- or twenty-year-old had come up here and thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Just because alcohol and pot were legal for them. All the eighteen-year-olds pouted. Some went to bars anyway and got in because of who they were.
I didn’t like that. I was a rule-follower through-and-through. Rules existed to keep people safe. If people didn’t deviate, then bad things wouldn’t happen.
Right, like ALS had anything to do with that.
As I sat on my bed, with my back against the headboard, that thought circled my mind. Mom had followed all the rules. Well, except getting knocked up by some asshole who abandoned her. Aside from that one moment of poor judgement, she’d done everything anyone ever asked of her. She’d played by the rules. She’d been diligent in everything. She’d done a fucking amazing job of raising me.
Then she’d been struck down in her prime by a diseasealmost too cruel for words. I did my best, as I promised her, not to think of all the bad shit. Instead, I remembered all the early mornings she’d frozen her ass off in the rink watching me skate. I’d think about how she managed to get gear for me even when she could barely put food on the table. How she put me first every fricking time she had to make a choice. She lived her life so that mine would be better. She’d died hoping I would have a good life.
And I did. I wasthisclose to making it to the big leagues.