Page 33 of Home Game

I sat up, as I lifted her back to her feet, careful not to hurt her. I reached to the coffee table and flipped on the lamp.

She clutched her towel to her body and her one good eye was wide with fright.

“Zoey,” I felt dazed. “What are you doing?”

“Why aren’t you in your own bed?” her voice quivered and her entire body trembled. I recognized sheer adrenaline and fear.

“You took over my bed.”

“Just for a nap.”

“I thought you knew I took the couch.”

She looked wildly around. “This was a mistake. I’m leaving.”

“Zoey.”

She backed up, almost tripping over herself. “Stay away from me.”

“Zoey,” I kept my voice low, speaking to her like I would a hurtanimal. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I gave you my bedroom, so you had more privacy.”

She froze and looked at me. “Who even does that? What is your game? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” I held up my hands. “Absolutely nothing.”

She backed away from me, swallowing convulsively.

“Zoey,” I soothed. “Just go to the bedroom. There is a lock on the door. Go to sleep.”

A slow tear ran down one cheek. And then she turned and ran to the bedroom. The sound of the door locking sounded through the entire apartment.

I lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

Fuck. What a fucking mess.

When I woke up,there was no sound from the bedroom. I pulled on my clothes from the night before. After last night's fiasco, there was no way I would try to get clean clothes from my room.

I sat on the couch and rubbed my face. This sleeping arrangement would not work. Not even short-term. I stood up and looked around the apartment. It was huge. A big open concept space with high ceilings. I had almost no furniture, save my couch and TV and my bed in the bedroom. I had two other spare bedrooms. Boxes stacked in my dining room area. Another empty room which they termed a den/office. Thanks to Krista, this was the nicest apartment I had ever lived in, yet I resisted making this my home. It had been over two months since I had arrived in Vancouver, and I had barely unpacked the essentials.

I missed my boys. The guys from my old team. I had been shit scared when I got drafted to the NHL as a rookie player but those guys welcomed me with open arms. They had become my best friends. They always had my back. They looked out for me like I looked out for them. I stood up for two of them when they gotmarried, and I drove another guy to the hospital, when his wife was in labor.

Vancouver felt cold. Even though I had been in practice with the Wolves for two months and we had already played two exhibition games together, I didn’t know most of my teammates, other than their playing style. No one talked to me. I hadn’t made a single friend. I was the team outcast. I didn’t like it, but worse, I had no idea how to fix it.

Besides Krista, Zoey was the only other person I talked to. Wasn’t it obvious why I didn’t want to unpack or get too comfortable here? This place didn’t feel like home and to my immense shame, it felt like I was just biding my time until I could move on.

At the rate I was going, I wasn’t even sure I would last the season. Jensen was doing his best to create a lot of dissension on the team. That kind of behavior was like acid. It burned through everything good and created unfixable problems on the ice. And now Mark and Gordon had bumped me up to a leadership position, which put me in an almost impossible situation. Usually, the assistant captains and the captain had a strong working relationship. Together they worked as a team to bring up the rest of the players. Making me an assistant when Jensen was the other assistant had been a huge mistake.

Now I had Zoey to worry about. When was the last time the girl had any privacy? How long had she been sleeping in shelters? I had never even been to a shelter, but I had a vision of Zoey huddled on a cot, surrounded by rows and rows of sleeping men. The thought made my skin crawl. If I could offer her a respite from her life, I would. I could clear out one of these bedrooms and put in some furniture for her. I would put a lock on the door and give her some much-needed peace of mind.

“Hey,” a soft voice spoke from behind me.

I turned. Zoey stood there, swimming in one of my t-shirts and those scrub pants. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her face looked less swollen. Her eye, if we iced it, would probably open in the next day or two.

“How are you feeling?”

She crossed and recrossed her arms. “Sorry I freaked out last night.”

“Sorry I scared you.”

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