Page 39 of Goal Line
Eva glances around as a few people walk by. “I’ll tell you when we’re somewhere more private.”
The first elevator that arrives is empty, so once the doorcloses behind her and we’ve each tapped our key card to select our floors, I ask again. “So?”
“You know what.” She gives her head a little shake with a roll of her eyes, and I can’t miss how pink her cheeks are. I’m trying to figure out if it’s because she’s hot or embarrassed, but the way the skin along her arms and across her chest prickles with goose bumps makes me think it’s the latter. “Never mind.”
“Evie, you can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
“It’s nothing.” She rolls her eyes again and looks away. It’s such a classic defense mechanism for her when she doesn’t want to talk about something.
I step closer and she takes a slight step back until she’s up against the wall of the elevator. “Evie,” I say like it’s a warning. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. Especially not now.”
She leans her head back against the mirrored wall as she looks up at me, and it presses her dark hair forward around her face and shoulders. “Fine.” Her chest heaves with a deep breath, but I force myself not to take my gaze off her face. “He asked what we’re going to do when one of us hasneeds. You know, since this marriage isn’t going to belike that.”
Why didn’t she bring this up days ago when we worked through our agreement? I lift my hand and place it above her head, leaning in just a tad more. Since we’ve been planning this, I’ve never let myself hope that things would turn physical between us. “Seems simple enough. You have needs, you come to me.”
Her lips part as she sucks in a breath. “And ifyouhave needs?”
“I’ll be fine.” Celibacy sucks, but there’s no way in hell I’dever make a fool of her by sleeping with someone else while we’re married.
She lets out a choked laugh. “Yeah, except I know your reputation. And I don’t want to be blindsided by news that myhusbandis cheating.”
“I would never go outside this marriage foranything. And I don’t expect you to, either. So again, if you have needs, you come to me. It’s that simple.”
“But Luke,” she says, and her short, shallow breaths make it seem like she’s fucking panting. It’s the first time in a very long time that I’ve wondered if she is—or could ever be—attracted to me. “That could ruin our friendship.”
“Cheating is a hard no for me. So if you think you’d be happier with someone else, let’s not do this.” Behind me, the elevator dings to signal its arrival at my floor. “You’ve still got a few hours to think about it. The choice is yours.”
With that, I push off the wall behind her, turn, and leave her standing there with her mouth agape. I don’t, however, miss the way she whispers, “Holy shit,” before the elevator doors close.
As I walk into the hotel event space where the NHL awards ceremony is being held, I’m not sure if I should be worried that I haven’t heard from Eva since leaving her in the elevator hours ago.
I’m trying to take the “no news is good news” approach, but there’s a very real possibility that she might show up to this event tonight and tell me she’s changed her mind. Instead ofsneaking off afterward to get married in the chapel I booked, then hopping on a flight to LA, we’d...what? Just head back to our separate hotel rooms and forget the whole thing?
Given how much time and care we put into planning all this out over the last couple of weeks, I never imagined myself returning to my condo in Boston by myself after this weekend. Now I realize how fucking lonely that would feel. I’ve gotten used to having Eva around, even though it’s only been an occasional day or night here and there since she first came back to Boston three weeks ago.
I never seriously considered the possibility of her backing out of this arrangement at the last minute. What would that even mean for our friendship?
I glance around the room, looking for my teammates. Only McCabe and Colt are here. McCabe, because AJ is receiving her GM of the Year award, and Colt, because he’s receiving the Goaltender of the Year award. I don’t see Colt anywhere yet, but McCabe is standing in line at the bar, so I head in that direction.
“Remind me why you’re here,” McCabe’s grumpy ass says as I come up next to him right after he orders. But the way he calls out to the bartender, “Make it two beers!” lets me know he’s giving me shit rather than asking a legitimate question.
Anyone can attend the awards ceremony, and there are plenty of fans here in addition to players, coaches, team management, and the media.
“Perks of my family owning the team,” I say with a shrug. Then I drop my voice, and say, “Listen, I’m sorry about how the last game went. It wasn’t my best effort?—”
“You need to stop fucking apologizing,” he practically growls.
I did plenty of apologizing in the locker room immediately after the game, and my teammates and coaches all said the same thing...games are won and lost by teams, not by individuals. And while Iknowthis to be true, I also know that a huge proportion of the blame rests solidly on my shoulders.
“Shit happens,” he continues, his voice still low. “Shit games happen. All you can do is learn from them and move on. You keep living in the past like this and it’s going to fuck with your game.”
My laugh is practically a snort. “Could my game possibly be any more fucked? And how exactly is this in the past, when every time I turn around another sports pundit isanalyzing that third period, and debating how I could possibly have sucked so bad?”
I’ve seen countless replays of me missing a shot in that third period. You’d think by now they’d have moved on to some other big sports story, but apparently my performance and that loss still warrant attention, even weeks later.
“You did suck,” McCabe says, and I appreciate his brutal honesty. I don’t want my teammates to feel like they need to sugarcoat things to spare my feelings, or—what I’m even more worried about—because my family owns the team. “But it was half a period, in one game. It doesn’t mean you suck as a goalie?—”
“Right, just Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, no big deal.”
