Page 34 of Replay

I liked the sound of that, but… “I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can get an ice pack and warm up some leftovers. But you’re likely to decide you need to go check something in your car or go get a Coke or ice cream from a corner store because you get bored and restless. I’m not going to take care of you till you’re playing again, but maybe today, when you haven’t had time to heal.”

I pushed down how good that made me feel. She knew me, and she did care about me. “You make me sound like a kid.”

She grinned. “Would you rather be alone?”

“Hell no.” Especially if the alternative was Katie.

“Okay. Give me your keys.”

She wasn’t long—only a couple of hours, but it felt like more. I made my own way to the bathroom, because damned if I’d let her follow me there. But after getting another drink, I was on the couch, behaving, when she got back.

We ordered in Thai, because if she was helping me, I wasn’t giving her leftovers. She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. We talked a bit while we ate, about how she was adjusting to Toronto, and how it compared to Halifax. I settled back on the couch while she put the dishes and leftovers away. I was set for food for tomorrow.

“Does your knee hurt?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s good.”

She jerked her head at the TV. “I think your game is on soon.”

Right. I needed to watch, see how everyone did. “Do you mind me watching it? I could use my phone instead of the TV.”

Katie smiled. I smiled back, because how could I not?

“I brought headphones. I’ll do my stuff, and you can do your job.”

She dropped her legs to the floor and picked up her backpack. She brought out a textbook and her laptop and settled back in the chair. She looked up, questioning why I was watching her.

Right. The game. I picked up the remote and found the broadcast. Time to do my job.

Chapter 12

The Best Incentive I’ve Ever Had

Josh

It was a preseason game, so the winner wouldn’t matter as far as points went for the season. But we had a healthy rivalry with Ottawa, and bragging rights were on the line as well as the mental game for when we next matched up.

Most of the guys playing were going to be on the roster on opening day. The coaches were still checking out the last of the tryout players: recent draft picks, and some guys from the farm team. I needed to understand the play of the guys I’d be on the ice with. I was on the first line, but things got changed up during a game. It was better to know what all the guys played like for when we would share the ice.

I should have been able to concentrate, despite the knee. I loved hockey and could watch any game that was on—women, juniors, even peewees. Usually if there was a hockey game on, it was hard to keep my attention on anything else. Now, Katie switched ice packs for me when I needed them and brought me drinks and some fruit to eat, but the game couldn’t keep my focus.

Katie was here at my place. She’d come to help me, and not only did that thought make me happy, I liked having her here. She read her book, made notes on her laptop, and in between chewed on her thumbnail. She used to do that when she was working on her homework in high school and I was trying to work out the math problems she had given me.

Then she’d reward me with a blow job if I got it right, and that was the best incentive I’d ever had to do math. I always made sure she got off too, but we couldn’t have full-on sex that often, what with all the parents around. I should have picked up sooner that they didn’t like us together.

Thinking of those old study sessions made my dick get hard, so I shifted around so Katie wouldn’t see. Sweats were comfortable but didn’t exactly help hide an inconvenient hard-on. I was still working on the friends thing.

I needed to focus more on the game and less on Katie. I shifted so the TV took up more of my view.

The team was also having problems with focus. It would be nice to think my absence was making that big a difference, but I was a forward. Our defense was struggling too, and that part wasn’t really on me.

Coach had talked to us after previous preseason games. He said we were too in our heads after last year when we lost the final game in overtime. There was a lot of pressure since we’d been one of the last two teams. People expected a lot of us. We expected a lot of us. This game? Was not meeting those expectations.

Fitch was one of the few players who didn’t look like they were having trouble. He was fitting in with new players and he had our systems to learn, but maybe he just didn’t have that same pressure as the rest of us because he was doing better than the guys from last year. Even Cooper was called for holding, which was so not like him.

Despite that, it was a one-goal game and I finally got into it. Petrov, our starting goalie, played the first period, and one of the draft picks started the second. They had Mitch, the guy who’d been called up from the AHL and was in net for that overtime goal, start the third period.

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