Page 42 of Playing the Pucking Game
Kodie slaps me on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out. When you do, you know where we are.”
“What? What are you talking about?” I shout as he marches from the room.
Fletch continues stretching, laughter rumbling in his chest.
“You’re not funny,” I mutter before dropping to the mat on the floor.
She might be on the other side of the room, but at no point do I forget she’s there. It’s not until Jarad calls her away that I can finally fully focus on what I’m doing.
It’s becoming more and more obvious that having Parker here is going to be a fucking problem for me.
And it only gets worse a little while later when we all take the ice, and there, standing in front of the player bench, is none other than Parker Donnelly with an iPad in her hand and her eyes on us. It’s not unusual; Jarad and Dillion are always watching our performance, looking for injuries and weaknesses.
The problem is that when they turn their attention on me, I don’t feel it all the way down to my toes.
12
PARKER
Ilove watching ice hockey.
Every game I attend, I’m just as excited for the action as I was the one before.
Nothing changes, and I hope it never does.
But standing on the sidelines, wearing an LA Vipers’ team-issued polo shirt with an iPad in my hand and the head athletic trainer standing beside me, having an intellectual conversation about the men shooting around the rink before us, hits in an entirely different way.
I’m a part of it now.
Ice hockey runs through my veins. But now, I’m not just a player. I truly am a part of the family, and I will be forever grateful for this opportunity.
The need to prove myself as a woman in a man’s world burns through me. I’m competitive—I always have been. You have to be if you’re going to be successful at any sport. But while I might no longer strap on skates or shoot a puck around, the need to be the best I can be hasn’t ever left me.
I have worked my ass off to be here, and I’m not going to waste a moment of it, or give anyone even a second to question my skills, knowledge, and ability.
“Storm,” Jarad starts, pointing at our first-line winger as he shoots around the back of the goal.
“Favoring his left side when his right is the strongest. I suspect his groin pull from last year hasn’t healed properly.”
“It has,” a deep voice barks from behind me.
I don’t need to turn around to know who it belongs to.
Dillion Mitchell, the other assistant athletic trainer, and my new colleague.
I don’t know all that much about him. We’ve only met a handful of times, but while most of the team takes the time to acknowledge me, and chat with me, he never has. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with him not wanting to talk to me. Just because I’m often at games, and best friends with the head coach’s daughter, it doesn’t mean I expect any member of the Vipers’ organization to know who I am and want to interact. What bothers me is the look in his eye. It’s a look that makes me uncomfortable.
I want to ignore it and convince myself that I’m being silly. But I learned a few years ago that I should trust my gut feeling. If I'd done it more then I might not be so jaded when it comes to dating and relationships.
I’m getting better. If I see a red flag now, I’m out that door faster than a winger on a breakaway.
But this isn’t a place where I can walk away from bad eggs. I’m going to have to be professional and work with them. I just pray that I’m wrong and he’s not going to make my life here harder than it needs to be.
“Okay,” I muse, turning to look at him with a calm expression. I really don’t want to piss the guy off on day one. “Then he’s picked up something recently that isn’t being treated correctly. I know how Storm plays and?—”
“And you think we don’t?” Mitchell snaps, his hackles up like a pit bull about to attack.
“That isn’t what Parker is saying,” Jarad assures him.
