Page 10 of Forecheck
Apprehensively, I handed it over and watched Amelia type out a message.
@BerkDaniels: I’ll let you know. Good luck on the road this weekend!
I gnawed on my lip, fighting the urge to unsend the message. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You basically just blew him off.”
Amelia nodded. “Always leave ‘em wanting more.”
“You, my dear,” I said, taking my phone back and rising from my seat, “have been spending way too much time with Lexie. Besides, he’s not just any man. He’s Brent Jean.”
Amelia pursed her lips. “Still a man. Just one who happens to have a pretty face and be really good at hockey.”
“Plus, you should be happy,” Kimber said. “Since you’re not even sure you want to hang out with him.”
Rude, but not entirely wrong. It wasn’t that I didn’twantto hang out with him. It was that I was terrified what would happen if I did.
She exited the room before I could, and Kimber followed her out. I stood in the space between the kitchen and living room, staring at my phone.
I wasn’t convinced Amelia’s blasé attitude was the way to go, but it was too late to take it back now.
Could Be The One
I exited the arenain Nashville behind my teammates, stepping off the curb outside the player’s entrance and right onto the idling bus that waited to take us to dinner. While the arena itself was situated downtown and we had our pick of restaurants in the area—most of which we could walk to—team management preferred that we dine away from the masses. That had never bothered me before, but tonight was one of those nights I could use a distraction.
Mostly because prying eyes and fans interrupting us would stop me from checking my phone every ten seconds. I figured since we’d won, Berkley would’ve at least messaged to say congrats, but it had been radio silence since the week before.
Our brief conversation cycled through my mind on repeat, her last message incessantly flashing before my eyes.
I’ll let you know.
Those four words were haunting me.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was professional hockey’s golden boy—or one of them, at least—and I wascertainly the star player on the Warriors. Thousands of women wanted me.
But the only womanIwanted was Berkley Daniels, and the fact that she wasn’t falling all over herself to let me into her world only added to her intrigue.
“You looked like shit tonight,” my teammate, Cole Reid, said, bumping my shoulder as I sat next to him on the bus.
“Thanks, Cole. That’s awfully sweet of you.”
Cole shrugged, as if to say,no biggie.“Just keeping it real. What’s your deal, anyway?”
“Dude, I had two points tonight!”
“You still looked off,” Mitch said, poking his big, blond head between the seats from in front of us. “My guess is something happened with Berkley, and it’s got you all twisted up.”
I grimaced, flashing my teeth at my best friend. “No one asked you.”
Mitch only grinned. “See, something definitely happened. Tell Uncle Mitch about it, Jean.”
“Bro, you’re only two years older than me.”
“But much more emotionally mature.”
Cole barked out a laugh, and Mitch turned on him. “Don’t even get me started on you, Reid.”
Now it was my turn to laugh, but the sound—and my joy at seeing Mitch give Cole shit—faded quickly. Once again, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped the screen, hoping Berkley had decided to message me since the last time I’d looked.
She hadn’t.
