Page 20 of The Nanny Goal

As I’m flushing the toilet, we get the five-minute warning, and everyone starts re-dressing.

I put on my new base layer, adjusting the built-in custom protection padding over my collarbone before quickly adding everything else.

I haven’t been challenged much in this game, which is a challenge in itself—staying focused, ready, for the moment when the momentum shifts and the shots start piling up.

I can’t have a certain blonde on my mind.

I certainly can’t be imagining her name in every overheard conversation, or dream up glimpses of her in the stands, wearing my jersey.

That’s never going to happen.

CHAPTER6

EMERY

I’m inundated with questions as soon as I step inside the family suite, which isn’t fair, because I have questions, too, but it’s five against one.

“I’ve found her, and look, she’s wearing an Arty jersey. Refuses to tell me why,” Kiley says. The WAGs’ resident theatre nerd, Kiley Forge has a flare for the dramatic and never passes up an opportunity to be a matchmaker.

“I told you I was forced to buy it,” I protest, but my explanation about the coffee is lost under her best friend Harper’s question, which comes next.

Harper Roberts is a paediatric nurse who loves her hockey-playing husband alot, but hates the limelight. She and Kiley are total opposites, but they’ve been besties since elementary school. “How long are you in town?”

“Just overnight, but I’ll be back next week…” I trail off as Shannon Barker, Rusty’s girlfriend, elegantly moves our friends out of the way and wraps her arms around me, giving me the world’s nicest, least earned hug ever.

Because next week’s game will be between my brother’s team, Alexei’s old team, and the Highlanders, who traded Max “Shannon’s Ex-Husband” Tilman away after Rusty smashed his face into the dressing room floor.

That game will be the return of the former captain to the building.

Really puts a pale on my own personal drama that nobody knows about.

I squeeze her back.

“Hi,” I whisper.

“We’ve missed you,” she whispers back.

I was never meant to be a part of this friend group. My whole introduction to them was a ruse I pushed on Rusty because he clearly needed a shove—I just didn’t realize that shove should be into Shannon’s arms.

If I had, I would never have pretended to be his girlfriend.

A lot of other people might hold a grudge or be wary of me for that choice, but not Shannon. She is a stunningly beautiful person, inside and out, and even though I’ve kept my distance for other reasons, we’ve forged an unlikely friendship over text messages and video calls.

She now works for the team as part of their marketing and public relations department. And she’s quietly, deeply in love with a man who would hang stars in the sky for her if she asked.

The last time we talked, she was at Rusty’s apartment, and he was talking about finding a house or a bigger apartment.

I pull back and look at her. There's a brightness in her eyes that is unmistakeable happiness. “How goes the house hunting?”

She laughs. “Did Russell ask you to say that?”

“He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

Her eyebrow curves up in surprise. “Really?”

Guilt guilt stabby guilt.

“Share the hugs,” Ani Hale says. She has to lean in to make room around a baby bump. When I last saw her, her and her husband were just talking about having kids, and now one is on the way.

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