Chapter 10

Culver

The sound of skates slicing through the ice fills the air as my teammates skillfully maneuver around the cones, passing the puck between them with precision.

I'm in the center of the designated area on the ice. Cones are set up around me. Coach adjusted my role in the drill to allow me to participate without aggravating my hip. I'll remain static, focusing on making and receiving passes without the need for much movement on my part.

Fraser sends the puck to me.

I focus on maintaining good form—my stick firmly on the ice, my body slightly leaned forward for better balance and control—and I shoot the puck to Donovan.

He makes a firm tape-to-tape pass to Slater, then rotates positions, skating to an open cone.

Slater sends the puck back to me.

Fraser's rotated positions, so I carefully adjust my body and launch the puck to him.

I'm bummed we've had to modify this drill so I'm stationary, but I couldn't ask for better teammates. The three of them made out like it's no big deal, and Donovan tried to make me feel better by pointing out that remaining in the one spot is a great way to train and improve my awareness on the ice.

They're good guys, and I love the Swifts. I don't want to get booted off the team. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for me to even get here after five years in the wilderness.

I did the usual thing, advancing through the junior league. I got drafted into the NHL at twenty-one to play for the Boston Bullets. We won the Stanley Cup in my rookie season and followed it up again the following year.

But as the saying goes, what goes up must come down.

Injuries sidelined me for most of my third season, resulting in a period of getting traded multiple times.

After dealing with compounding injuries and bouncing around teams for five seasons, I was at an all-time low.

And then I landed at the LA Swifts, joining them at the same time Fraser did.

The first two seasons, I played the best hockey of my life. My body cooperated, I managed to avoid serious injuries, and I felt the same fire and motivation I'd had when I first started.

And then last year happened. The injuries started stacking up again, and a twenty-eight-year-old body doesn't recover as quickly as a younger one.

The ongoing hip pain, which I tried to mask until the MRI confirmed a hip labral tear, was the unofficial final nail in the coffin. It's not completely out of the question that I'll play another year, maybe two, but the odds of me making it even that far are not in my favor.

After fifteen minutes, Coach calls time on me. Because, yup, that's the extent of my training.

I watch the rest of the session from the sidelines.

Chronic pain is such a strange thing. As an athlete, my body is my machine. I've honed it. My training, my diet, my sleep patterns, everything is calibrated and controlled. So when my body's not working like it should, it really messes with me.

And speaking of things that are messing with me…my thoughts drift to Hannah.

That's a different type of messing, though. The kind of messing I can get behind.

Because spending the summer with her is turning out to be filled with more surprises than I expected.

And they're all good surprises.

Kissing her.

Seeing her in my shirts—now an everyday occurrence, I'm happy to report.

But maybe the best thing of all is watching her having some fun. She deserves this hot girl summer. I know she misses the twins, and she's uncertain what her future holds—something I totally relate to—but she's loosening up, having a great time, and maybe even discovering a new side to herself, too.

Whenever something takes over your life, whether it's children or sport or career or anything, you change in response. And part of that change causes you to suppress, or at least temporarily shelve, certain aspects of who you are.

You have to.

You can't go out every night and party and come home at two a.m. when you're responsible for two teenagers in the same way you can't skip training or focus on anything other than hockey during the season.

I'm not saying Hannah is a suppressed party girl, but she has given up a lot to take care of her younger siblings.

Like dating.

She had one or two boyfriends in high school, but it was never serious, and since then, there's been no one.

I'm curious about what aspects of herself she'll discover next.

Is being a stickler for organization and writing a list for everything who she really is, or was it something she developed to help manage her life?

Is she more spontaneous than she gives herself credit for? After all, she did drop to her knee and propose to me. That was a very un-Hannah thing to do.

Is running her mom's flower shop her passion, or is there anything else she wants to do with her life?

There are so many areas of her life I'm excited to see her explore.

The training session ends.

I skip the contrast water therapy most of the guys do and have a massage instead.

After we finish our post-training routine, I join Fraser, Donovan, Slater, and Milo in the dining hall.

We catch up on how everyone has spent their summer so far.

It's not lost on me that of the five of us, the three with girlfriends—Fraser, Slater, and Donovan—look and sound the happiest.

I shoot a glance at Milo, who looks as grumpy as ever, and after that very restricted training session, I'm hardly a ray of sunshine myself.

I eat my food and say nothing. I'm happy for them—I am. But if I'm being completely honest, I'm also a little jealous.

All three guys are hyper-focused athletes dedicated to the game, yet when their girlfriends call or text, they get all giddy with delight, like a kid on Christmas morning.

I've never had that.

And I want that.

I want to be head-over-heels for someone.

I want to light up whenever my girlfriend calls or texts.

I want…I want to be in love.

Maybe that's what's starting to happen with Ha?—

"How's the stadium going?" Milo asks Fraser.

"There's a lot to do," he says, then explains Evie has put him in charge of operations, and that the stadium is in dire need of an overhaul.

I listen with one ear since I already know most of this.

"And what about you, Milo?" Slater asks when Fraser's done. "It's nice to see Captain Happiness gracing us with his presence."

Milo huffs and mumbles, "I'm going through some stuff."

That's it. That's all he says before piling a few forkfuls of chicken into his mouth.

I know we're guys and all, but man, this guy gives Fraser a run for his money in the I don't want to talk about anything to anyone ever department.

Having learned my lesson from Fraser the painful way, I know it's best not to push. Milo knows we're all here for him, and whenever he's ready to talk, he can come to us.

To break the awkward silence, Donovan turns to me and asks, "And how's life in Comfort Bay treating you?"

"More importantly, how's life with Hannah treating you?" Slater adds with a grin.

I fling some of my quinoa at him, purposefully missing his head because I'm a nice guy.

"Things are fine on both fronts. It's great being home…" Because Comfort Bay will always be home in my heart. "And it's great hanging out with Hannah."

"You guys get up to anything exciting?" Slater asks.

"We have fun."

Fraser chuckles. "What sort of fun?"

Since the list of things I can't tell them is longer than the list of things I can, I bring up Hannah's hot girl summer, filling in Donovan, Slater, and Milo on how she's basically put her life on hold to raise her younger siblings for the past seven years.

"She sounds like an amazing person," Donovan says.

"She's the best." I continue eating. "And this summer is all about her doing whatever she wants to do. I'm just tagging along for the ride."

That's an understatement wrapped in a lie tied up neatly with a bow of plausible deniability, but there's no way I can tell these guys the truth. Not even Fraser. He's too busy with Evie and the stadium, and besides, maybe I should figure out where things stand with me and Hannah first before mentioning anything to my friends?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the male brain.

"I've seen her at a few games." Slater grins. "I say this purely as an objective observation since I am a happily taken man with eyes only for my girl, but Hannah is smoking hot."

I slam my knife and fork down on the plate, the clatter echoing in the dining hall.

"Whoa, relax, man," Slater says. "No need to glare at me like that."

"I'm not glaring."

Sure, my forehead's pinched, my jaw is tight, and my hands are balled into fists—okay, so maybe there is a possibility I am glaring at the guy.

I try to soften my expression. "There. Better?"

"Uh, sure."

Whoa.

What is with me, and why did I get all Caveman Culver about Slater stating a simple truth? Hannah is smoking hot.

"Sorry," I mumble, feeling a little foolish.

"That's cool, man," Slater says, exchanging knowing glances with the others. "So, what's next on her list?"