Page 41 of Paxton

I shut the door behind him, completely understanding the feeling.

Which doesn't make sense at all, seeing as how we’ve been practically inseparable since coming home. You’d think we'd be tired of each other by now, but I guess that's what happens when you blur lines with your best friend.

I hurry up to my designated massage room, sliding new sheets onto my table and turning on the warmer in preparation for my client. I go through the routine motions, all the while doing my best tonotto think of how good this new normal feels, and how I'm terrified of losing it.

CHAPTER 13

PAXTON

The first dayof training flashes by in a blur, complete with more grueling techniques from Blakely—aka Coach Wren—who seems to have spent her entire off-season enlisting Lawson to help her perfect more brutal ways to torture us on the ice. I'm seriously questioning my friendship with him after today.

But despite the ache in my muscles, there’s a deep sense of satisfaction being back on the ice in an official capacity. Sure, we've had plenty of pick-up games before this, but training is on a whole other level.

And I can’t say I’m sad to be walking to the locker room now, more than ready for a shower and a chill night on the couch catching up on true crime dramas with Monroe.

“No,” Clay’s voice rings in the hallway, and I spot him near the locker room doors, his phone to his ear and a scowl on his face. It’s not his normal scowl, but a truly agitated one. “You've got to be kidding me,” he says, now pacing next to the locker room door. “The guy tried to lift his skate. You would’ve laid him out too—” He abruptly cuts off, dropping his phone for a few seconds and pressing his lips together before raising it to his ear again. “That was last season. I can't believe we're still dealing with this.”

More Badgers are filing into the locker room, but I hang back. Clay and I aren'tbestfriends, but we've been Badgers long enough to have developed a closeness. And I'd like to be here in case he needs to vent after whatever this phone call is leading to.

High heels click to my left, the distinct sound alerting me to Elise Fullman’s presence. I swear the woman doesn't own a pair of sneakers, not that she needs to, but I know some of the guys—especially the ones she agents—sometimes hear those heels as a foreboding call. Not for any trouble she causes, of course, but because she lays down the law when it comes to her clients, keeping them in check. It's a small price to pay for the incredible contracts she manages to find them, but still.

I give her a smile and a nod as she stops outside the locker room to talk to Baylor, one of her clients. They talk in a relaxed tone, things I can't hear from where I'm standing. Baylor is like the poster boy for several athletic brands, and maybe he's got a new endorsement coming up that she's letting him know about, which would be great because with how injury-prone Baylor is. He needs all the sources of cash flow he can get in case he pushes it too hard one day and ends his career.

I hate thinking about things like that, but we've discussed it more than a time or two. He's not unaware of how risky a player he is, and he does his best to stay healthy to try to mitigate some of that.

“Fine,” Clay snaps. “Settle it. I want it done.” He hangs up the phone, shaking his head. “Fucking agents.”

“Yours still giving you trouble?” I ask, taking my opening to cross the hallway and stand next to him. We talked about it at his house at one of the last parties. He had one of the best agents in the business—not as good as Elise—but someone who’d taken him on when he was in college. Clay sometimes talked about how he would ride his ass more than he thought he needed it ridden.

“Constantly,” Clay answers. “I think that's in the job description.”

“It isn't,” Elise says from where she stands. Baylor’s eyebrows raise as he looks between her and Clay. “Usually if an agent is giving you trouble, you have the wrong agent or the wrong attitude. Which do you think is most likely in your case?” she asks, a challenging look in her eye that screams she thinks it’s the latter.

Holy shit, this woman has zero fear. She looks up at Clay like he’s a puppy she can train instead of the grumpy NHL captain he is.

His scowl turns curious as he looks down at her. “It definitely isn't my attitude,” he says.

Elise looks him up and down, shrugging. “You sure, Kiplin? It seems every other time the media is reporting about a brawl on and off the ice, your name is written all over it. I know that if I was your agent, I would?—”

“You aren't,” he cuts her off, swinging open the locker room door and disappearing inside without a second glance.

Elise is still looking incredulously at the door by the time it closes, and I flash her an apologetic look.

“Your captain is as charming as ever,” she says to Baylor and me, then looks back to Baylor. “You'll look over the files I sent?”

“Absolutely,” Baylor answers. “Thanks, Elise.”

She nods at the two of us, adjusting her black blazer jacket despite it being immaculate, before she spins around and clicks the opposite direction.

“She's like Batman,” Baylor says, holding the door open for me as we head inside the locker room. “No fear.”

I laugh at that, shaking my head. “I guess you have to be that way if you're in the business of managing guys like us.”

“Definitely,” Baylor says, the two of us breaking off to head to our lockers.

Nash and Lawson are still in the various stages of taking off their gear, the two of them cringing and flinching just as much as me as I start to take off my own. Good, I'm not alone in the pain department.

“I'm just saying,” Nash says, eyeing Lawson. “Maybe you could like…wear her out or something before the next practice so she doesn't take it out on all of us. What did you do? Piss her off on the way to the arena?”

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