Page 127 of Game Changer
“Charitable.”
“I don’t know about you,” Carter said, “but I’m looking forward to shutting him up.”
Scott ripped the tape off the roll with his teeth. “Hell yes.”
Besides wanting to beat Rozanov, round two was the point when the Admirals had been eliminated from the playoffs last year, so it was important to Scott that they make it to the third round.
Huff walked into the dressing room, eating an apple. He sat and pulled out his phone. “Who wants to see a cute picture of my kids?”
“Do we have a choice?” Carter asked.
“Nope! Check it out!” Huff passed his phone to Carter, who glanced at it and handed it over to Scott.
“Nice,” Scott said, looking at the smiling faces of Huff’s son and daughter, chocolate smeared all over their mouths. “They’re getting so big!”
“I know. I miss so much,” Huff sighed. “I feel like I have at least another season in me after this, but then I gotta think seriously about getting Laura that ranch she’s always wanted.” He smiled. “You can take the girl out of Alberta...”
“Well, let’s get you another Stanley Cup ring first,” Scott said. “Then you can think about retirement.”
“How many will this be?” Carter asked. “Four?”
Huff waved a hand. “Who the hell can keep track?”
Carter chuckled. “Fuck you, old man.”
Scott knew for a fact that Huff had already won four Stanley Cups with three different teams. None with New York. It was four more than either Carter or Scott.
Scott sat and pulled out his own phone. He brought up a couple of recent photos of Kip that he’d taken. It was probably a risk even having these on his phone, but he had to give himselfsomething, for fuck’s sake.
He let himself look at Kip’s sexy grin for a minute, enjoying the warmth that flooded him every time he saw it. Then he pocketed the phone and went back to pretending that part of his life didn’t exist.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kip had expected Elena to attend the upcoming home games with him, but when he mentioned it to her she texted back,Can’t. I’m not in town.
Kip: Where are you?
Elena: L.A.
Kip frowned and sent back a question mark.
Elena: Work. I’ll explain when I get back.
This was not great news. Elena was literally the only person he could bring without having to answer a lot of questions about how he had two prime tickets to a sold-out game.
The Admirals had won the first game against Boston. Boston had won the second. They would be playing the third game tomorrow night in New York.
Scott should be home soon.
Kip picked up the copy ofSports Illustratedfrom Scott’s coffee table. The glamour shot of Scott stared back at him. Scott had been embarrassed about the cover, but he had seemed to warm to it a bit when he’d seen how much Kip liked it.
The cover had Scott, shirtless and wearing hockey pants, holding a hockey stick across the back of his shoulders and neck. He stared straight at the camera, cold and challenging and absurdly sexy. The dramatic lighting showed every groove of his muscular torso and arms.
The copy on the cover saidTHE RETURNin big, white letters. Kip had read the article several times. It mentioned that Scott was unmarried, and didn’t have any surviving family. It was just a brief sentence or two, almost offhand, but it gave the reader the impression that Scott might be very lonely.
Kip wondered if the interviewer had asked Scott if he was seeing anyone. What would Scott have said? Just a simple “no”? Or would he have blushed a bit and fidgeted and mumbled “no comment”? Or would he have said that hewasin a fulfilling relationship, but he had chosen to keep it private?
From this line of thought, Kip’s imagination jumped to a possible future scenario where Scott came out publicly and their relationship became known. What would the articles about Scott look like then? Certainly his love life would take up a lot more of the page than a couple of sentences.
