Page 28 of Lucky Shot
“Not such a bad consolation prize.”
He lets out a hearty laugh that makes my stomach flip. “Nobody wants to start vacation before June.”
“So, assuming you win, you have July and August off? Can you go wherever? Do you have to check in with the coaches or anything?”
“For the first month, everyone spreads out. Guys travel to see their families or go on vacation. But by August most are back to training full-time.”
It tracks with what I know of Flynn’s schedule. He took a little bit of time after the end of the season last fall but then got right back into his routine well before Spring Training began.
“That’s a lot of hockey. Do you love it?”
He stares at me blankly, mouth slightly open.
“Is that a dumb question?” I give him a sheepish smile.
“No. It isn’t that. I was trying to remember the last time someone asked me that.”
I study him as he finishes off his burger with a contemplative look on his face. Freckles stretch across the bridge of his nose. There’s a small scar just below his bottom lip. His face is covered in darker stubble than this morning. He’s the kind of handsome I typically avoid. Too good-looking, too muscular, too everything. Maybe it’s so high school to admit but he’s the jock and I’m the nerd who looked forward to book reports. There is no other situation in which I can imagine sitting across from someone like Nick and sharing a meal. The closest to dating a jock I’ve ever come was a blind date with a guy who played intramural soccer. When he suggested I join for our second date, I knew I had to bow out.
When he speaks again, his tone is softer. “It’s a job. For nine months out of the year, I see more of my teammates than I do my family. We play eighty-two games, half of them out of state. But the thing is, even saying all that, I still do. I think you have to love it. There’s no other way anyone would be willing to sacrifice as much as we do.”
His words hit me like a shovel to the head – or maybe the heart. I can tell he loves it by the look in his eye, the reverent tone. There was a time I loved writing that much.
My eyes go watery, and my throat tightens. I glance down, unable to hold his gaze. How humiliating. I just cried over hockey, or at least that’s probably what it seems like to him.
Annie steps up to the table while I’m composing myself. “Hey, Champ, sorry to interrupt. Could you bring a keg out from the back for our bartender?”
“Yeah, of course.” Nick slides out of the booth and gets to his feet.
Annie and Nick head toward the bar, then he disappears behind it with the bartender. I use the time to clear my thoughts.I can’t believe I almost cried in front of him. The last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster.
Annie comes back to the table and clears some of the plates.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You want anything else?” she asks me. She’s not as warm with me as she is with Nick, but she’s not ignoring me anymore.
“No. I’m good. Thanks.”
She nods.
“Why do you call him Champ?”
She stares at me stone-faced. Okay, maybe she hasn’t come around to me as much as I thought.
“He won the championship with the Wildcats before coming to Moonshot,” she says.
“Right…” I wait for her to explain further.
“He was a big get for us. I still can’t believe the Wildcats let him go. They had to juggle around a lot of players to fill his shoes. And between me and you, they still aren’t as good as they were when Nick was with them. He brought them a championship and he’s going to bring us one too. I can feel it.”
I don’t totally understand the logistics of composing teams, and trade details are definitely out of my wheelhouse, but what she says makes sense. Why then did they trade him?
She leaves before I can think of anything else to ask her, and then Nick returns.
“Sorry about that,” he says as he takes his seat.
“It’s no problem.”
